Civ Discussion - Siam

[bengalryan9]

This thread marks the end of our civilization discussion threads (for now) as we finish up with the last alphabetical civilization in the last age of the game – Siam. Siam is a cultural and diplomatic civilization with a starting bias towards ivory. Their associated wonder is Doi Suthep, which gives a base +4 influence as well as +5 culture and gold for every city state you are suzerain of. Siam can be unlocked by playing as Khmer, Chola, or Dai Viet earlier in the game, by choosing either Ashoka, either Himiko, Jose Rizal, or Trung Trac as your leader, or by having 4 temples or improving 3 ivory.

Their unique ability is Itsaraphab, which grants a special diplomatic action that allows you to immediately convert an independent power into a city state with you as its suzerain, though this action is more expensive than the normal befriend action.
Their unique military unit is the Chang Beun, a field cannon replacement with increased ranged strength and movement that can move after attacking.
Their unique civilian unit is the Uparat, a great person with a wide variety of potential outcomes. I’m not going to list them all but most are related to helping you convert city states or give bonuses related to the number of city states you are suzerain of. They can only be trained once you’ve befriended an independent power, though.
Their unique infrastructure is the Bang, which gives +3 culture and +3 happiness to navigable river tiles (note: there are events that increase the culture yield).

Siamese Civics:
Nine Gems – unlocks the Bang, the State Railway tradition, and gives +2 culture for every civilization relationship above friendly. At mastery it unlocks the Sakdina tradition and gives +2 influence for every civilization relationship above friendly.
Mandala – unlocks the Prathetsarat tradition and gives +6 CS to Chang Beun units in or adjacent to city states you are suzerain of. At mastery it unlocks Doi Suthep, the Mueang tradition, and gives +2 culture to the palace for every city state you are suzerain of.
Sriwilai – gives +2 culture for every active diplomatic action with another civilization, and at mastery gives +5 culture and +2 gold for every trade route with another civilization

Siamese Traditions:
State Railway - +2 influence on gold buildings
Sakdina - +2 happiness in cities for each city state you are suzerain of
Mueang - +5 gold for each allied city state
Prathetsarat - +20% influence towards initiating diplomatic actions with city states

What are your thoughts on Siam? Are they strong, weak, or just right? What parts of their kit do you like the most, and where do you find them lacking? Do you have any preferred strategies or interesting tips when playing as them? Which other civs and leaders pair well with them? Let’s discuss!

 

[j51]

They’re fun to play what with befriending tons of city states for more bonuses and the elephant guns just being cool and the cities looking great.

 

[bengalryan9]

I like Siam a lot and choose them often, though I do think they take some pre-planning and good luck with map generation to really take advantage of. I think the Bang is really good when you consider that there are events that buff its base yields - it'll be +6 culture in most settlements and +9 in your capital. I know I've had capital cities in past games with 6 or more Bangs, and that's a lot of culture right there by itself without even considering all the others across your empire. I think this is even more powerful since the adjustment to building costs as all of this culture can make it so you don't have to worry about building museums or opera houses (unless you need the artifact slots). The key is to make the decision that you are going to choose Siam early in the game so that you can avoid building on those navigable river tiles early on so you can build as many Bangs on them as possible... stick your water buildings on coastal tiles or minor rivers whenever possible.

Ranged UUs that can move after attacking are always strong IMO. There are also some really strong Uparats, though like with all Great People you'll have to roll the dice and hope you get lucky in order to take advantage of them. Itsaraphab has its uses - namely for instantly befriending hostile city states that normally take a long time - but sometimes it's better to just go the standard route to suzerainity. Their associated wonder is one that pairs very well with them.

They fit my preferred playstyle very well!

 

[Lord Lakely]

I don't have an opinion on them. I played them once in a Himiko snowball game, and their abilities didn't come into play.

They feel like one of those Civs that are better if you play an Advanced Start in Modern, rather than a three act campaign. It's often difficult to build the Bangs.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Siam is based on "Fifth Reign" Siam (Rama V, Chulalongkorn), roughly the same time period as (later) Queen Victoria (1868-1910), a period of modernization, competition with European powers, and where Siam actively adopted European colonial strategies vis-a-vis its own "internal others": Lao, Lanna, Malay populations. It's considered the kind of golden age of recent Thai history (after the founding of Bangkok).

 

[disjointaccount]

Siam are solid. They're the designated "city-state" civ in modern. Probably not as good as they were, following the city-state nerfs, but still good for sure. It's not my favourite playstyle personally, but they have their niche and they're good at it, which is really all a civ needs to do.

On a more subjective note, the Chang Beuns are very cool and have some of the most satisfying sound design in the game imo, and I also think the Siam theme is my favourite out of all civs.

 

[pjotroos]

I significantly cooled off on Siam after playing them a couple of times, recently.
Itsaraphab is a very nice concept on paper, but I always find it so prohibitively expensive. Any way you slice it, using it halves the number of city states you have access to thorough the era. I could only really justify it to grab some hostile IPs after already investing in all the friendly ones.
Bangs similarly sound great on paper - very pretty to look at - but there's limited number of spots you can put them in, and at over 1000g each, they can feel quite expensive. If I'm playing a cultural game, I'd buy five or six explorers before I'd consider buying my first Bang, and I'd always build one museum over 2 or 3 of them.
Uparats, due to random effect, are also a bit of a gamble - either you invest a set amount of production early (which can be quite precious with the scaling building costs) for a chance at getting an useful effect, or you delay them till the point where they no longer matter.
The yields from their traditions are quite low, when compared to other diplomatic and cultural civs, like America, Qing or Nepal. I don't think they help with any of the victory conditions, really. My favourite game with them was a military victory one, because of Chang Beun - that's the closest it got to their toolkit helping me with my objective.

 

[Leucarum]

I thought they were going to be my favourite modern Civ! On paper I really liked the design, and a Siamese empire filled up with bangs looks very pleasing on the eye. And I even like their theme tune.

Unfortunately I think they're solidly in the lower middle of the pack both in strength and fun. In practice I find their abilities aren't very useful, influence is so plentiful in modern that instantly suzeraining city states is underwhelming. It slows you down if anything... And the rest of their kit just isn't as impactful as I'd hoped. Pjotroos summed it up pretty well so I won't repeat...

The highlight is definitely the Chang Beun, but millitary isn't the direction I want to take my game if they're my pick.

I really like the choice of giving them Great People. Showcasing Great People from a less universally known culture was an inspired choice. Unfortunately, great people are too random to usually be worth building with any civ. I hope there's a tweak so we get a choice of great people when we build them, I just find they gather dust otherwise unless I have literally nothing else better to build...

 

[pjotroos]

I hope there's a tweak so we get a choice of great people when we build them, I just find they gather dust otherwise unless I have literally nothing else better to build...

I think just making it so they don't have a scaling cost would be a massive improvement. across all eras. Building the first couple is usually fine, but then it ramps up quite quickly.

 

[Leucarum]

I think just making it so they don't have a scaling cost would be a massive improvement. across all eras. Building the first couple is usually fine, but then it ramps up quite quickly.

I think the problem is that it's a mystery box... You could build a boat, a millitary unit, something which will definitely contribute to your game plan, or you can open the mystery box. I'm only gonna do that if I don't care what I get when I open it...

Or - the exception to the rule - Egypt shows another way, having multiple great people with the same effect, so you have decent odds of getting an effect you want, is another option. But even then, Egypt's Tjaty are often a "hail mary" move.

 

[bengalryan9]

Maybe just tie the actual production of Uparats to all those city states you're befriending - let Siam spend influence to have a city state train an Uparat for you. It wouldn't tie up your production, gives you something to spend the extra influence on, and makes city states more interactive. Maybe put a cooldown on how often each city state can do it to really encourage you to befriend as many as possible.

 

[Leucarum]

Maybe just tie the actual production of Uparats to all those city states you're befriending - let Siam spend influence to have a city state train an Uparat for you. It wouldn't tie up your production, gives you something to spend the extra influence on, and makes city states more interactive. Maybe put a cooldown on how often each city state can do it to really encourage you to befriend as many as possible.

Get an Uparat every time you use Itsaraphab?

 

[bengalryan9]

Get an Uparat every time you use Itsaraphab?

Would probably make both more attractive for sure!

 

[UWHabs]

A few more connections for civs like that would help.

I played them recently, and yeah. Bangs are a problem. Honestly, even with the quest to get them to 6 culture and 3 happy, at that point in the game for 1000 gold it's just not worth it. I mean, you have what, 20-40 turns left in the game? I could have 3-4 Bangs and get 20-ish culture, or I could pop down a factory and get a bunch of production and slot 4 kaolin to give me 12% bonus culture empire-wide.

They can still be fun to play, but if I was trailing in the game, they really don't have anything that can get you ahead, unless if you just are drowning in influence.

 

[disjointaccount]

I played them recently, and yeah. Bangs are a problem. Honestly, even with the quest to get them to 6 culture and 3 happy, at that point in the game for 1000 gold it's just not worth it. I mean, you have what, 20-40 turns left in the game? I could have 3-4 Bangs and get 20-ish culture, or I could pop down a factory and get a bunch of production and slot 4 kaolin to give me 12% bonus culture empire-wide.

I think this is a combination of problems that are somewhat inherent to the modern age. Any civ ability that's more geared towards general sim-city-ing/strengthening your empire is somewhat redundant in an age where you're no longer setting up for the future and just need to get your win as quickly as possible. So civs with abilities and buildings that just give you yields to help you win faster do well, and those that require a bit of investment and feel more geared towards long-term play don't.

This is especially true of culture. Science wins require a lot of science; economic wins require a lot of gold and influence (and science); military victories require a lot of production or gold (and science). Cultural wins, however, can be achieved with little to no culture output. So in modern, civs whose power budget is allocated into culture generation just don't feel that impactful. Furthermore, what culture you are generating is almost certainly best spent just rushing Hegemony to try and get the 4 freebie artifacts, so engaging with your unique tree at all is kind of a wasteful detour.

Siam is an unfortunate combination of a slow-and-steady-scaling sim-city civ, and a culture civ, neither of which fare hugely well in modern, and the above problems compound with each other to make the Bangs feel extremely lacklustre.

Just about every one of these threads I've talked about how I heavily favour fairly generalist civs for modern but never bothered to write up why - that's the basic gist. The age is set up in such a way that civs who can generate a lot of gold, production, or science quickly tend to do better at any given win that civs who are ostensibly specialised into that specific win. Personally I'm a fourth age believer, and hopefully if/when that expansion arrives, a dedicated final age where everything is more geared around straight win-chasing will make for a more satisfying endgame and also alleviate a lot of the issues with modern by making it play more like the first two ages, in that there's benefit to more long-term investment in your infrastructure.

All of that said, I do still think Siam's city-state stuff is enough to hold the kit up. They're on the weaker end overall, but their diplomatic output keeps them relevant and gives them a niche they can excel in.

 

[Leucarum]

Whether it's a "victory age" or just a score victory at end game, modern needs something...

Assuming it gets it though, I think Siam mostly needs scaling/cost changes and a bit of a game-wide rethink of Great People. It's definitely fixable!

 

[pjotroos]

I think this is a combination of problems that are somewhat inherent to the modern age. Any civ ability that's more geared towards general sim-city-ing/strengthening your empire is somewhat redundant in an age where you're no longer setting up for the future and just need to get your win as quickly as possible. So civs with abilities and buildings that just give you yields to help you win faster do well, and those that require a bit of investment and feel more geared towards long-term play don't.

This is especially true of culture. Science wins require a lot of science; economic wins require a lot of gold and influence (and science); military victories require a lot of production or gold (and science). Cultural wins, however, can be achieved with little to no culture output. So in modern, civs whose power budget is allocated into culture generation just don't feel that impactful. Furthermore, what culture you are generating is almost certainly best spent just rushing Hegemony to try and get the 4 freebie artifacts, so engaging with your unique tree at all is kind of a wasteful detour.

Siam is an unfortunate combination of a slow-and-steady-scaling sim-city civ, and a culture civ, neither of which fare hugely well in modern, and the above problems compound with each other to make the Bangs feel extremely lacklustre.

Just about every one of these threads I've talked about how I heavily favour fairly generalist civs for modern but never bothered to write up why - that's the basic gist. The age is set up in such a way that civs who can generate a lot of gold, production, or science quickly tend to do better at any given win that civs who are ostensibly specialised into that specific win. Personally I'm a fourth age believer, and hopefully if/when that expansion arrives, a dedicated final age where everything is more geared around straight win-chasing will make for a more satisfying endgame and also alleviate a lot of the issues with modern by making it play more like the first two ages, in that there's benefit to more long-term investment in your infrastructure.

All of that said, I do still think Siam's city-state stuff is enough to hold the kit up. They're on the weaker end overall, but their diplomatic output keeps them relevant and gives them a niche they can excel in.

I think their diplomatic output is overall pretty average, too. They're certainly beaten quite heavily by America and Qing, probably on par with Nepal (which is stronger otherwise), and that's just off the top of my head.

As for the fourth age, I'm not a believer, because it would require fundamentally changing current modern age. And I don't mean - in terms of objectives. I mean that it's already very stale on turn 1, because you start it with a fully developed empire. There's no new land types to settle, no new discoveries to make, just a couple of new, self-contained minigames with the factories and artifacts. Being able to rush a victory objective and end it quick is the one saving grace. Having to play it through to 100% completion would just be interminable. I very rarely abandon games (I finished well over 80% in the 2200 hours I've spent in Civ VI) but forcing me to fully play the current modern age would be one way to get me to start.

 

[UWHabs]

I think their diplomatic output is overall pretty average, too. They're certainly beaten quite heavily by America and Qing, probably on par with Nepal (which is stronger otherwise), and that's just off the top of my head.

As for the fourth age, I'm not a believer, because it would require fundamentally changing current modern age. And I don't mean - in terms of objectives. I mean that it's already very stale on turn 1, because you start it with a fully developed empire. There's no new land types to settle, no new discoveries to make, just a couple of new, self-contained minigames with the factories and artifacts. Being able to rush a victory objective and end it quick is the one saving grace. Having to play it through to 100% completion would just be interminable. I very rarely abandon games (I finished well over 80% in the 2200 hours I've spent in Civ VI) but forcing me to fully play the current modern age would be one way to get me to start.

Yeah, antiquity is always fantastic, because you explore for the first time.
Exploration has its balance flaws, but you still end up with half the world to explore, and you still end up with this little secondary rush out to get some new lands.
But yeah, in modern, basically the world is already full except maybe some smaller islands or remote tundra areas. There's really nothing to explore anymore. You could change the gameplay around so that it's all about setting up factories and industrialization, but you lose a big aspect of the push and pull of the game, trying to balance settling out yourself vs conquering, and it just.. yeah, lacks something. So any civ that doesn't really push you down any of the paths specifically struggles.

You could change the modern era to somehow have a chase for resources, some fancier factory mini-game, and really start to bring aircraft in, and you end with like a tease towards the space program, to lead into the "victory rush" of a 4th age. But that feels like it would just be an extension of the 3rd age, so I'm pretty happy right now with that.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think this is a combination of problems that are somewhat inherent to the modern age. Any civ ability that's more geared towards general sim-city-ing/strengthening your empire is somewhat redundant in an age where you're no longer setting up for the future and just need to get your win as quickly as possible. So civs with abilities and buildings that just give you yields to help you win faster do well, and those that require a bit of investment and feel more geared towards long-term play don't.

That could partially be fixed by making those Vitories require more significant investment to achieve (not necessarily the Legacies but the Victories themselves)
In modern if you finish all the Legacies (but no Future Tech/Civics) the game ends on Turn 140....

Which means they should probably tune the Victories so that an ordinary player on their appropriate difficulty level can focus and achieve one of them by about turn 110-130 or so, and civfanatics Might be able to do it on Deity in 90-100 (as opposed to 40-60 now)

If it is less of a sprint, then there is still time for some buildup in Modern.

 

[MutilationWave]

I would like a fourth age as victory rush but with no civ switching. We need so many civs to backfill other ages that I would hate to see work going into 4th age civs instead.