[R&F] Double Oligarchy

[acluewithout]

Sorry for the double post, but a quick question: can you stack the Oligarchy Legacy Card with Fascism and the Facism Legacy Card? Does that give units +12 combat strength??

 

[NegativeZero]

The Zulu really benefit well from double oligarchy as early corps w/ +5 str (with corps/army) come a bit later.

Some early UUs certainly benefit more with the oligarchy legacy stacking:

Persia's Immortal:
The ranged attack benefits from Battlecry (+7 vs melee/ranged units) plus stacked oligarchy (+8 combat str) allowing 40 str. ranged attacks!

Spoiler :

Harald's Viking Longship:
With oligarchy stacked, these galley replacements sit at 38 combat strength. What makes them fearsome is their quick production speed (+150% w/ policies) and ranged units (archers,etc.) have -17 combat str. attacking navel units (in R&F). Longboats are quite tanky with support bonuses (for adjacent ships) and ranged units getting -17str vs. boats allow them soak +4 archer hits before having to flee or heal in open water.

Spoiler :

Even with one hex, the longships took the city after two more arrived. The healing in open water is vital as you can cycle the ships between attacking and healing.

The feel of slotting in/out the legacy polices is much better over a few accumulated %s.

 

[nzcamel]

The feel of slotting in/out the legacy polices is much better over a few accumulated %s.

You don't see these bonuses as game breaking?

 

[NegativeZero]

You don't see these bonuses as game breaking?

The oligarchy stacking is strong and the AI don't seem to stack legacy polices, so I do see it tipping the scales further in the player's favor.

Oligarchy just exacerbates the issue of the AI's combat prowess with 1upt as the bonus is so early. The other governments and legacies are in-line with inherent AI bonuses (king diff. and up) to stand out while other powerful government bonuses come too late to matter.

 

[nzcamel]

Hence why I'd rather the card wasn't available while one was still in an oligarchy. I think all three early government types were well balanced in vanilla (though I didn't use Autocracy often tbf); but it's hard to go past just how powerful this combo is...

 

[NegativeZero]

Hence why I'd rather the card wasn't available while one was still in an oligarchy. I think all three early government types were well balanced in vanilla (though I didn't use Autocracy often tbf); but it's hard to go past just how powerful this combo is...

The choice of slotting in a legacy policy while still being in said government is not inherently a bad decision. It creates more choice and selection for the player as they play the game. Oligarchy is just the outlier as it is overwhelming when stacked.

That being said, Autocracy is kinda nice for +4 all yields in one city or +2 yields in capital plus one other city by turn 55ish (avg.). It is not terribly strong, but +24 total yields (at that point) can accelerate things a bit. I do feel its power drops off as it doesn't scale well as the game goes on.

Classical Republic feels about where legacy policies should be. It scales well as the game goes on, multipurpose, and works well for both wide/tall. I really like this one with coastal settles as it helps get things running quicker.

Stacking the other 1st tier government legacy cards feels about where game balance should be, but not overwhelming like oligarchy.

 

[pgm123]

Hence why I'd rather the card wasn't available while one was still in an oligarchy. I think all three early government types were well balanced in vanilla (though I didn't use Autocracy often tbf); but it's hard to go past just how powerful this combo is...

I suspect they'll change it to get rid of double bonuses. It's a bit of a tradeoff because government buildings aren't necessarily great by themselves, though.

 

[Psychotronics]

Because they basically had no impact. Even in the slowest of games you'd only get one or two ticks of the legacy bonus. Oh goodie I get 2% more great people points for the rest the game! The new system is far better.

I had a very fun game as Brazil in a lower difficulty, where I got all the extra card bonuses and stayed on Classical Republic for almost the entire game. That was the only game where the legacy points were relevant, though.

I suspect they'll change it to get rid of double bonuses. It's a bit of a tradeoff because government buildings aren't necessarily great by themselves, though.

I wonder what they'll do to the last tier government bonuses, though. Doesn't make sense for you to have "Communist legacy" without having Communism, and changing governments just for the bonus seems a bit weird.