Denmark

[Minh Le]

7P, 7C on epic speed in classical in each city, when my capital have like 2x or so production, my other cities have like 1x, my pathfinder and horseman are running around pillaging keep it at least 2 pillages (in the worst case possible, on average it would be about 4 pillages a turn) a turn which almost doubles my production output (not to mention Culture). Crazy enough?

 

[infidel88]

Ok so I’ve seen the gold numbers from the example and agree it’s definately OP. Talk to me about the runestone, what kind of numbers is it generating with these raids?

It's a bit of theorycrafting, but scout with pathfinding II and mobility can pillage 4-5 forest tiles in a turn and retreat. 4-5 tiles/turn in medieval is 40-50 per city. Given that you go with authority and have 8 cities, it's like 320-400/turn. In medieval. Then you move to other AI city and work you wonders there, afterwards you can go back to previous city and, hopefully, Ai will fix improvements

 

[ElliotS]

The fact is that you probably average 1 tile per turn while in war until late game. Early on fighting a city you take a couple per turn and it slows down over time.

It's a bit of theorycrafting, but scout with pathfinding II and mobility can pillage 4-5 forest tiles in a turn and retreat. 4-5 tiles/turn in medieval is 40-50 per city. Given that you go with authority and have 8 cities, it's like 320-400/turn. In medieval. Then you move to other AI city and work you wonders there, afterwards you can go back to previous city and, hopefully, Ai will fix improvements

This sort of theory-crafting doesn't work because the AI just doesn't have enough tiles till much later, defends them well enough and doesn't tend to repair them while you're trying to take them. Having the ability to take tiles and having tiles to take don't overlap for long in most cases.

 

[CrazyG]

Its not OP if play normally, but it is easily exploitable by sending early pathfinder raid, horse raid, spear raid, berserker raid

With Denmark, I usually feel like I'm snowballing beyond control before I get to berserkers, and the runestone scaling with era is the strongest scaling with era effect (other than maybe Greece)

If the Runestone had like 5 culture and 5 production as just a yield it would be monstrously strong, and if you really try to pillage the current effect is much stronger than that. I think they key is that you often don't capture cities or workers, just kill everything and come back in 15 or so turns.

 

[ElliotS]

Like honestly just keep track of how many tiles you actually pillage. I think that if you average it out it won't be higher than 1 per turn until late game most games.

 

[Minh Le]

who care about late game when you are too far ahead early game

 

[Gazebo]

One possibility here would be to tweak the function of the runestone such that each runestone affects the capital, instead of the city in which it is built. Might be easier to balance.

G

 

[pineappledan]

One possibility here would be to tweak the function of the runestone such that each runestone affects the capital, instead of the city in which it is built. Might be easier to balance.

Having the yields diffuse is important. If the production is concentrated in a single city, you could use it as a powerful wonder rushing technique.

At any rate, I think the bigger concern is the gold from city damage. @CppMaster suggested that the gold on pillage could scale with the CS of the city. That seems like a workable system to me. Maybe 4x CS? So you're getting ~20, or 36 if the city has a garrison before walls. Then you start hitting for 80 with walls, then 160 with Castles, and so on?

I think the yields on pillage is powerful, but not unfair. Just another reason to keep Denmark on a defensive war. I think we can have a more clear-headed talk about pillaging yields once gold on city attack is brought under control.

 

[TwoPodRay]

One possibility here would be to tweak the function of the runestone such that each runestone affects the capital, instead of the city in which it is built. Might be easier to balance.

G

If it just added culture to the capital, that would be slightly more balanced, since getting a bunch of extra culture in any other city with a Runestone also ensures border growth happens much faster than normal. Not sure if this is an intended side effect or not. If all of that production went to the capital though, I would worry no one could compete with Denmark on wonders, since you would just go pillage a bunch of neighbors when building one. I still think the production is either too high or not needed.

 

[infidel88]

The fact is that you probably average 1 tile per turn while in war until late game. Early on fighting a city you take a couple per turn and it slows down over time.

It's not a fact, it's more theorycrafting than I made. If you consider T200 late game, I can easily pillage 10+ tiles for 5 straight turns, being in modern and having 20 cities that's like 5*5*20*10=5000/turn. Nice output.

 

[Minh Le]

I was testing some early wonder rushing strat using various civs, denmark is supprisingly come out on top and it is far better than the second one (Egypt).

 

[Gazebo]

Having the yields diffuse is important. If the production is concentrated in a single city, you could use it as a powerful wonder rushing technique.

At any rate, I think the bigger concern is the gold from city damage. @CppMaster suggested that the gold on pillage could scale with the CS of the city. That seems like a workable system to me. Maybe 4x CS? So you're getting ~20, or 36 if the city has a garrison before walls. Then you start hitting for 80 with walls, then 160 with Castles, and so on?

I think the yields on pillage is powerful, but not unfair. Just another reason to keep Denmark on a defensive war. I think we can have a more clear-headed talk about pillaging yields once gold on city attack is brought under control.

Did you see my post above? Already done.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Did you see my post above? Already done.

I hadn't seen that, no. Oops.
Isn't 10x a little high though? hitting a city with walls will be 200 gold

Edit: 200 gold, not 2000 gold

 

[ElliotS]

I hadn't seen that, no. Oops.
Isn't 10x a little high though? hitting a city with walls will be 200 gold

Edit: 200 gold, not 2000 gold

It's a cap, so I think it's fine.

 

[azum4roll]

Just asking, does this new cap affect Mandekalu Cavalry's ability too?

 

[Cozzolino]

I'm on 10/10 patch playing Denmark for the first time. Spawned on a pretty small continent with Morocco and Aztecs. I almost conquered everything there as of turn 280ish, I expect to gain full control of the continent in as little as 30 turns. After conquering the Aztecs I gained easy access to another continent to the south which has city states only, about 4 of them. Right now there's a Knight pillaging each and every tile there with impunity, with 1 turn wars I can grab 3 tiles per turn and city states can't really do anything about that.

I'm lagging behing in culture and science but it's going to be really easy to catch up with this cheap strategy. Denmark is in a good spot right now but I think pillaging a CS tile should give half reward.

 

[neo_arcadia]

Worry not, as Odin will use his Nerf Hammer towards Harald upon becoming too naughty mwahahaha.
(or..not, because who's Odin compared to Gazebo's approval)

 

[tu_79]

I'm on 10/10 patch playing Denmark for the first time. Spawned on a pretty small continent with Morocco and Aztecs. I almost conquered everything there as of turn 280ish, I expect to gain full control of the continent in as little as 30 turns. After conquering the Aztecs I gained easy access to another continent to the south which has city states only, about 4 of them. Right now there's a Knight pillaging each and every tile there with impunity, with 1 turn wars I can grab 3 tiles per turn and city states can't really do anything about that.

I'm lagging behing in culture and science but it's going to be really easy to catch up with this cheap strategy. Denmark is in a good spot right now but I think pillaging a CS tile should give half reward.

Being naughty to City States deprives you from their juicy quests and good faith yields. Still, what you are doing might be giving more yields, but it is not pure profit.

 

[Cozzolino]

I'll take the tradeoff anyday as Denmark. Sure, quests are big, but pillaging their tiles is exceedingly consistent and as a warmonger I'll bully them at every possible chance anyway.

Edit: I just wanna draw attention to the impunity of such strategy, and question if this is healthy at all for Denmark.

 

[ElliotS]

I'll take the tradeoff anyday as Denmark. Sure, quests are big, but pillaging their tiles is exceedingly consistent and as a warmonger I'll bully them at every possible chance anyway.

Edit: I just wanna draw attention to the impunity of such strategy, and question if this is healthy at all for Denmark.

The city states will eventually all perma-war you IIRC and that means you lose the WC. That allows the AI to really mess with you if you're not already super far ahead. Don't underestimate the power that the WC can bring to bear, especially as the game goes on.

I don't see it as an issue.