[NFP] Civilization VI: Maya & Gran Colombia Pack Discussion Thread

[Kwami]

As I suspected from the preview, the Mayans aren't very good. I mean, if you happen to get a bunch of planations placed in just the right configuration, they're fine; but that's 20% of games. There's no such thing as a resource bias, so you don't get plantations more often than any other civ. From the half-dozen games I played, they don't even seem to get any noteworthy rainforest bias. I think I generated something like fifteen maps and maybe five or six of them had rainforest within reach of the start location. Only a couple actually started in rainforest. Quite a few of them literally had no tiles within immediate reach on which farms could be built, which basically meant a forced restart or multiple turns spent moving the settler through rugged terrain. There were more games without plantations than with.

Just for the record, there very much is such a thing as a resource bias. And indeed, Maya has a tier 2 bias for plantation and mining luxuries. I'm not sure why they added the mining luxuries, but whatever.

Maya also has a tier 1 (strongest) bias for plains and grassland, not for rain forest.

 

[bengalryan9]

I never have less than 10, usually between 15-20. I said this in my post as well, weird that you'd ask (# of cities matters hugely).

however 14 cities DONT have twice the science of 7.

Weird, then, that you'd completely downplay his/her results by simply shrugging it off as not really being impressive. That seems pretty good to me whether he/she is playing in your preferred style or not.

 

[Ryansinbela]

Somebody please tell me the voice actors

 

[Pfeffersack]

They fixed the pricing of the strategic resourсes! No need to buy one by one any more. Traded niter, it was 6 g apiece and I could buy a batch of 20 for 119 g. I'm a happy boy!

Really? My hopes were quite low after not having read about it in the patch notes. I just hope the fix is not only for niter (the bug affected all ressources which came after niter)


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you can still get 1 GPT for a strategic ressource though I believe, if you use the "what would you give" option, correct?

No, it's only 1 gold, not 1 gpt, if they have 40 but are not filled up to the brim.

Yes, thats the usual behaviour when the have reached 40 units. However, he might have refered to a different case: I remember that broke AI (=no lump gold anymore) offered 1 GpT for a strategic ressource units. Not sure if that was ever fixed (my report was here; the 2nd issue: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1-0-0-328-two-1-piece-trading-exploits-still-present.646931/ )


*BTW, what sadly didn't get fixed yet: That hard 40 limit does not scale with game speed. While 40 is in most cases okay for standard speed, it seriously damages the AI on Epic and especially Marathon game speed. A limit of 40 does not make sense, if a single units cost 30 or even 60 ressource units in some cases.

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[bengalryan9]

Just for the record, there very much is such a thing as a resource bias. And indeed, Maya has a tier 2 bias for plantation and mining luxuries. I'm not sure why they added the mining luxuries, but whatever.

Maya also has a tier 1 (strongest) bias for plains and grassland, not for rain forest.

The mining luxuries being included sucks... seems to me be what happened with the map I rolled. If all of these gypsum and jade spots were actually plantations I'd be off to an even better start.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Weird, then, that you'd completely downplay his/her results by simply shrugging it off as not really being impressive. That seems pretty good to me whether he/she is playing in your preferred style or not.

I merely said those results weren't in and of itself enough to claim that Maya are OP, which I don't think they are. I never intended to attack their results.

However, he might have refered to a different case: I remember that broke AI (=no lump gold anymore) offered 1 GpT for a strategic ressource units. Not sure if that was ever fixed (my report was here; the 2nd issue: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1-0-0-328-two-1-piece-trading-exploits-still-present.646931/ )

that is exactly what I was talking about, thanks!

 

[DWilson]

I think the extra luxury biases are to support a higher city adjacent to luxury bonus count.

 

[Kwami]

I think the extra luxury biases are to support a higher city adjacent to luxury bonus count.

Sure, but plantations are already the most common luxury type. And, if you start with some plantations, then surely there are other luxuries around for your other cities. Why specifically mining luxuries? Just in case there aren't any available plantations? That seems unlikely since it's a tier 2 bias and plantations are generally everywhere.

 

[Hans Castorp]

My Maya game started in a terrific spot, apart from the fact that there were no plantations available at all. Still had a pretty good game with them - I like the tall-style. For Bolivar, I had assumed the movement bonus would be super-duper OP, but actually given hill-start, it was less striking than I had thought it might be in the early game. I wound up playing fairly peaceful because of some pretty severe mountain-ranges keeping me away from the Cree, which wasn't ideal. The movement-cost-free promotions proved pretty good for Apostles and Rock bands, though.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Sure, but plantations are already the most common luxury type. And, if you start with some plantations, then surely there are other luxuries around for your other cities. Why specifically mining luxuries? Just in case there aren't any available plantations? That seems unlikely since it's a tier 2 bias and plantations are generally everywhere.

If it had been up to me I would have given the Maya a tier 1 bias for all plantation things (banana included) and a tier 2 bias towards rainforest. I know they don't really get a bonus from rainforest more than anyone else, but for geographical accuracy to the yucutan. I understand the reason behind the mining luxury bias, but I had a similar experience... I had like five rerolls surrounded by mercury or gems and no plantation things.

Or... make the Observatory effect luxury mines as well. The Mesoamericans had a large cultural value on Jade, after all.

 

[bengalryan9]

The UU is very good, but being an ancient era unit on an anti-domination civ, it's not something that carries a whole lot of weight throughout a full game. It's good for defense in the first 75ish turns, that's about it. Nice to have but not something that defines the civ's playstyle in any real way. And since you're pressed to rush for aqueducts anyway, and will surely have the machinery eureka by then, you'll have no reason to delay crossbowmen. It's a little unsynergistic that way, but not a big deal. A science civ just doesn't get that much mileage out of an ancient era unit.

Going to disagree about the Hul'che only being good for the first 75ish turns. The way I see it, a Hul'che making use of both of it's combat bonuses is 38 ranged strength, only 2 less than a crossbowmen trained by any other leader. They cost a third of what a crossbow costs. Keeping them around instead of upgrading to crossbows basically puts me on even ground with any other civ and saves me a ton of gold which I have definitely noticed in my current game.

Any UU that can last from the ancient era to field cannons is top tier in my books.

 

[Kwami]

If it had been up to me I would have given the Maya a tier 1 bias for all plantation things (banana included) and a tier 2 bias towards rainforest. I know they don't really get a bonus from rainforest more than anyone else, but for geographical accuracy to the yucutan. I understand the reason behind the mining luxury bias, but I had a similar experience... I had like five rerolls surrounded by mercury or gems and no plantation things.

Or... make the Observatory effect luxury mines as well. The Mesoamericans had a large cultural value on Jade, after all.

Well, you probably don't want a bias for rain forest, though. The Maya need farms, which means flat plains and grassland. You could chop the rain forest, sure, but Maya already require extra builder charges to get those extra farms up for housing and you can't chop rain forest without bronze working tech, so it you'd be stuck for a while.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

If they fare decently against Knights/Horsemen you can definitely delay upgrading them until later in the game. In a domination game you want to be upgrading anyway, and in a defensive game you want to focus more on your peaceful victory with your gold, so this mostly comes down to violent culture/science/diplo victories where you have to decide between upgrading to xbows or using that gold to fuel your economy.

Well, you probably don't want a bias for rain forest, though. The Maya need farms, which means flat plains and grassland. You could chop the rain forest, sure, but Maya already require extra builder charges to get those extra farms up for housing and you can't chop rain forest without bronze working tech, so it you'd be stuck for a while.

also, I think chopping food is influenced by housing (I might be wrong here, just a speculation from my games) so Maya jungle chops are less effective than any other civ's, which is kind of a shame.

 

[satchel]

I started my first Gran Colombia game this morning. The movement bonus is really strong. I thought I would be snatching up goody-huts right and left -- except it turned out that I started on an Island with one city-state and no other civs. (Weird because I thought I'd picked continents map type, but whatever.) So as not to waste my super-fast units (nicely leveled up after clearing a handful of barb camps) and classical-era Comandante General, I did something I've never done before -- I took the city-state! It just seemed like it would be more aesthetically pleasing if the entire island was mine. It will support about 8 cities, I think.

Oh well. I guess I'll have to build a navy and go do some Normandy-invasion style stomping if I want to take advantage of those speedy, speedy units. I built an early galley but I can't even find another land mass within coast-tile range, so I guess I'll be focusing on those top-path techs for a while.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

What an odd choice to have Gran Colombia, a nation that existed for only 11 years. I get that Bolivar is a George Washington-figure to many South Americans, but it kinda feels like having Yugoslavia in the game, or Czecho-Slowakia, or Austro-Hungary, or... well there are many more, less savoury examples.

Should just have called it 'Colombia'.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I would very much like Austro-Hungary in a future iteration of Civ. Some constructs are only short lived, but very impactful. I don't see why we need an arbitrary qualifier for what constitutes a Civ in the form of long-lastingness. Also, the barriers are very unclear anyway. People can't even agree on whether the Byzantine empire is meaningfully Roman, even less on when the Roman empire actually ended. Reality is more fluent than dates in history books, or Wikipedia articles.

Also, Barbarossa has U-Boats as one of his special units. Just saying. Clearly time and space don't necessarily translate well into Civ. Barbarossa also led the Holy Roman Empire, not Germany, but still it is pretty clear that ole Rossa is only meant to represent the general kind of territory that is today Germany, rather than specifically the HRE, because honestly very little is specific to the HRE there, especially not the U-Boats. Bolivar fulfills this more nicely, imo, his bonuses actually resemble Gran Colombia.

 

[Loerwyn]

Weird, then, that you'd completely downplay his/her results by simply shrugging it off as not really being impressive. That seems pretty good to me whether he/she is playing in your preferred style or not.

Thanks. I felt they were OP based on my previous experience of Civ VI. I was pulling in more science per turn than I ever have done, and it was just going up and up. Maybe part of it is me improving as a player (though I still don't consider myself a particularly skilled player), and also focusing more on science towards the end, but those were yields I have *never* seen for something like science. For gold, sure, I can do that without trying too much as Poland, but science? Nah. I think if a player such as myself can get 1000+ science per turn with however many cities I had (7) and completely run away from the AI then perhaps there is some imbalance there.

I can see them getting taken down to 1 science per adjacent plantation and 1 per 2 farms rather easily.

 

[UWHabs]

If it had been up to me I would have given the Maya a tier 1 bias for all plantation things (banana included) and a tier 2 bias towards rainforest. I know they don't really get a bonus from rainforest more than anyone else, but for geographical accuracy to the yucutan. I understand the reason behind the mining luxury bias, but I had a similar experience... I had like five rerolls surrounded by mercury or gems and no plantation things.

Or... make the Observatory effect luxury mines as well. The Mesoamericans had a large cultural value on Jade, after all.

Yeah, part of me feels that the observatory and Mayan bonuses are close to matching, but are just a hare away from actually matching up properly. I think if I could rebalance them a little, perhaps:
-Give the Mayans a flat +1 housing for all farms/plantations/camps (maybe just farm/plantation)
-Give the observatory a flat +1 adjacency bonus for farms and plantations, rather than 1/2 farm and 2 plantation
-Give the +1 gold bonus for both farms and plantations too, but also have that bonus increase over time (maybe something like +1 gold per 2 adjacent farm/plantation at the medieval era, and up to +1 gold per adjacent farm/plantation in the modern era).

Alternately, maybe they could have gone even bigger with them, and done something like removing them getting trade routes from commerce hubs and harbors and giving them the trade routes to their observatories. Now THAT would have been a super unique bonus, although then observatories would have just been essentially a win-now button with that.

 

[kryat]

Somebody please tell me the voice actors

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that no one in this forum knows who the voice actors are...

Maybe tweeting at Ed or Anton is the right way to go about this

 

[lohaller]

I don't mind the small randomness of Maya, it seems like a more balanced Korea. Their UU is amazing and the cheaper campus will always be good even if a lack of plantation will hurt a bit. I initially thought they would be pretty awful but u can fit 6-7 cities within the range most of the time considering their start bias and get going. I got the space victory before 1600 on diety so they seem to be alright, not S tier thou.

Bolivar must be S tier thou? The movement bonus combined with the general is simply too good, I can just kill and pillage everyone starting in the classical era. I guess island maps will be a letdown but otherwise he's amazing.