Egypt / Ramesses

[Gazebo]

Egypt's UB is getting a rethink. I've been holding my tongue until I had the kinks worked out, but, essentially, here goes:

The UB will now provide Faith and Culture (+3/+1, respectively), retains the tourism on trade bonus and Caravansary bonus, but now, instead of GAP from war, it gets a free special Artifact on creation: a Sarcophagus. It generates Tourism/Culture/Science like any Artifact, and they're unique to Egypt (i.e. they're named Artifacts themed on dynastic rulers of Ancient Egypt). I think it is cool, and it'll help Egypt leverage its UA a little bit earlier than normal.

G

 

[phantomaxl1207]

So it's like it comes with a plunder bonus that the Vanilla UB had. Looks interesting and more fitting. I wonder how it will interact with Theming Bonuses.

 

[Gazebo]

So it's like it comes with a plunder bonus that the Vanilla UB had. Looks interesting and more fitting. I wonder how it will interact with Theming Bonuses.

It will count as an artifact, so theoretically Egypt will have earlier themes in their museums as they'll already have artifacts prior to archaeology.

G

 

[phantomaxl1207]

So the Artifacts you get can make a Theming bonus with the Parthenon.

 

[Gazebo]

So the Artifacts you get can make a Theming bonus with the Parthenon.

Yep! I like the new unique artifact. Is fun.

G

 

[NerdExtrodinare]

Ok, I don't know why but the comment was posted here instead of where I told it to go (I did have two pages open but I clicked the reply on the Japanese one.)

So I'll just mention I really like the chariot idea with the slave labor! A bit over played by the media (the "Egypt had a lot of slaves") but very interesting little mechanic!

Though I do have to say it's a little strange that the ancient (and one of the oldest people in the world) have a bonus that only comes into effect late in the eras.

 

[De_Genius]

I like the artefact idea a lot. It transform the caravansary from a somewhat situational building to a building you want everywhere.
You are able to start producing tourism quite early on which can translate into some good advantages.
Then when you start to dig up more artefacts, the culture and science gained becomes very very nice.

Too bad that you cannot build more than 7-8 burial tombs right now, since the game will start crashing afterwards, but when this is fixed, Egypt is a strong contender for a tourism victory.

The chariot archer provides some good capital building hammers early on, but seems to fizzle out somewhat towards the end. Having +1 moment would make it a lot more relevant, especially if that bonus was kept through upgrades.

 

[Rean]

I like the artefact idea a lot. It transform the caravansary from a somewhat situational building to a building you want everywhere.
You are able to start producing tourism quite early on which can translate into some good advantages.
Then when you start to dig up more artefacts, the culture and science gained becomes very very nice.

Too bad that you cannot build more than 7-8 burial tombs right now, since the game will start crashing afterwards, but when this is fixed, Egypt is a strong contender for a tourism victory.

The chariot archer provides some good capital building hammers early on, but seems to fizzle out somewhat towards the end. Having +1 moment would make it a lot more relevant, especially if that bonus was kept through upgrades.

It already has +1 movement over the base chariot.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I've just realised through playing that the UA works with the Tomb. Good god.

I think it really needs some heavy tuning down - the Tomb being effectively +3Faith +7Culture +5 Science +2 Tourism is way too much for a Classical Era building. Nothing compares to this one. Even if UA didn't activate, it'd still be a great building - +3F +2C +2T is still great for a Classical Era unique building.

I mean, just compare it to Swedish Skola. It costs several times more production and will give on average you slightly more science at a point the difference doesn't matter much, less culture (you need 35+ people to get identical, good luck with that if you went Authority), no faith, no tourism.

Since it's perhaps unfair to compare Tomb to a building I've never seen anyone say a good word about, let's compare it to what fellow Classical Era unique buildings gain.

Royal Library - effectively +2Science per city, perhaps some XP by Renaissance/Medieval
Carthaginian Thing - +3Culture per coastal city, +2 TR, same tech
Basilica - Faith based on pop instead of straight Temple +3, hard to say
Colosseum - +3P +1C, GG/GA but needs effort to get them and with so many GGs, you will be tempted to delete them
Jelling Stones - +2C, irrelevant culture bump, 5C5P on unit kill (unless you kill two units per turn on average, it's going to be inferior to Tomb. Not only is that not going to happen, doing that would require actual effort)
Floating Gardens - way more F+P, but those yields are mostly inferior to S/C and will never be worth as much
Saint Mark's Pizza - more nutritious and delicious for sure, but it gives a smaller amount of less important yields in the capital than Tomb gives in every single city you own. Also unlocks some buildings, but they're in late Medieval and only with them does it compare to what Tomb gives... in ONE city. Since Ramesses is not ra-messing around, he will have at least 4-7 by then. Not even comparable, but then Pizza might be a wonderful product, one of the greatest culinary inventions - but boy, is it underwhelming as an UB. If only Venice could get all the three unlockable UBs...

In fact it's not only Classical UBs that are way worse than Tomb. Even medieval UBs are inferior to this one. Renaissance ones too. This thing comes two eras earlier than Siamese Wat and gives almost the same yields -perhaps Wat provides +1Science in comparison, but has -2 faith, no tourism and requires you to work 3 forests to get equal culture - on average you will get less of that. In other words - weaker. Also costs twice as much Production and is two eras later.

Suggestion:
Make the UA +5C+5S activate upon researching Archaeology. It's not like a Classical Era UB providing +3F +2C +2T (and very easy access to wonder art combos) is underpowered or anything, it's still just as good as fellow Classical Era buildings, in fact still better than all of them (perhaps except for Jelling in some, very rare situations)

 

[Funak]

Yeah it gives a lot of yield, but the building itself is still boring as all hell. I don't even think it needs a nerf, that's how boring it is.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Yeah it gives a lot of yield, but the building itself is still boring as all hell. I don't even think it needs a nerf, that's how boring it is.

Just because something can be described boring doesn't mean it should perform better than two times more expensive Uniques two eras later, like for Ramesses. Boring stuff that requires little input should, in fact, be worse because it takes no skill to manage. If the Tomb gained her UA element after Archaeology, it'd still be the best UB of its era with +3F +2C +2T +potential combo. It just wouldn't be insane.

And tbh it's not very boring considering all the GW combinations you can potentially do with it. If this one is boring, then pretty much every UB is, perhaps except for the likes of Jelling, Colosseum and Mission which require you to do certain stuff to be really worthwhile. Venetian Pizza is also less boring I suppose due to all the three choices, even considering the fact it's not very good. Dandolo should be baking it himself because Saint Mark is apparently a terrible cook.

 

[Funak]

Just because something can be described boring doesn't mean it should perform better than two times more expensive Uniques two eras later, like for Ramesses. Boring stuff that requires little input should, in fact, be worse because it takes no skill to manage. If the Tomb gained her UA element after Archaeology, it'd still be the best UB of its era with +3F +2C +2T +potential combo. It just wouldn't be insane.

Honestly, 1Faith 2C 2T -1G as the stats are in game (compared to a normal caravansary) would make it the absolute worst UB in the entire game, no explanation needed.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Honestly, 1Faith 2C 2T -1G as the stats are in game (compared to a normal caravansary) would make it the absolute worst UB in the entire game, no explanation needed.

Isn't it 3 Faith? IIRC Caravansary has no Faith, Tomb has 3. That's a free non-Piety Temple.

+3F +2C +2T seems very good compared to fellow Classical era buildings. Egypt would be able to compete at tourism with the best of them, gets +2C which most of Classical era buildings get and it also gives you almost all the benefits of a non-Piety temple. Pay in mind it would still be the only unique Classical/Ancient era building that gives +Tourism (and that becomes truly great if you can combine Great Works), making Egypt very well fit for any and all cultural victories.

Pizza, in comparison, gets +2Food +2Production +2Gold +1Science and +8% GP generation - only in Capital. Those yields are worse than 2C 2T 3F per tourism for sure and are only in one city.

Jelling will provide more Culture on average (and is slightly earlier on in the tree) as well as some Production but gets no Tourism and no Faith. If I were going for Cultural Victory (or if I just want to get more Tourism to get better TR), there's no comparison between the two, especially paying in mind my proposed Tomb would begin paying off even more after Archaeology. The free Faith is also good as late Classical is when you should be looking to enhancing/spreading your religion, and Egypt has a much easier time getting Wonders - so the artifact combination can pay off even more very soon.

I could make the comparison with every single Classical/Ancient building and the proposed Tomb would still be at least a sidegrade, usually an upgrade. Would you seriously take a Basilica over that? You need 12 pop to get 3 faith more than Temple and you won't benefit from +2C +2T as well as easy way to fill your Museums/wonders.

I actually think explanation would be needed because I don't see any considerably better buildings and don't understand how this one is bad, let alone the worst. Compared to Colosseum for instance, Tomb gets +Art Combination potential, +3Faith, +2Tourism -3Production -GG/GA points -somemeaslygold (2% per connection stopped mattering after the harsh nerf to city connections). Would you seriously prefer a Skola that gives you the yields 3 eras later, especially considering in the same era your Tomb has already worked for 3 eras, given you potentially Brazil-tier tourism if you expanded and will now be put on the same level as Skola in power as you research Archaeology?

 

[Funak]

Isn't it 3 Faith? IIRC Caravansary has no Faith, Tomb has 3. That's a free non-Piety Temple.

+3F +2C +2T (and -1G which could be removed) seems very good compared to fellow Classical era buildings. Egypt would be able to compete at tourism with the best of them, gets +2C which most of Classical era buildings get and it also gives you almost all the benefits of a non-Piety temple. Pay in mind it would still be the only unique Classical/Ancient era building that gives +Tourism (and that becomes truly great if you can combine Great Works), making Egypt very well fit for any and all cultural victories.

Pizza, in comparison, gets +2Food +2Production +2Gold +1Science and +8% GP generation - only in Capital. Those yields are worse than 2C 2T 3F per tourism for sure.

Jelling will provide more Culture on average (and is slightly earlier on in the tree) as well as some Production but gets no Tourism and no Faith. If I were going for Cultural Victory (or if I just want to get more Tourism to get better TR), there's no comparison between the two, especially paying in mind my proposed Tomb would begin paying off even more after Archaeology. The free Faith is also good as late Classical is when you should be looking to enhancing/spreading your religion.

I could make the comparison with every single Classical/Ancient building and the proposed Tomb would still be at least a sidegrade.

It's 1Faith ingame, you might be observing the leader selection screen which has been broken since forever. And even at 3 faith, the building is by far the weakest one in the game. Tourism that early on does close to nothing, faith by that time is one of the weakest yields in the game. Temple is a decent building because it boosts religious pressure and reduces unhappiness from religious division by quite a bit.

The Piazza isn't even a real UB, it only exists as an activator for the 3 other UBs all which are a lot better than the current burial tomb.

The Jellingstone is a lot better base-building, it allows that base-building to be built in locations where it normally wouldn't be allowed to, it increases great people generated by a fair amount and it provides bonus-yield on kills, that scale with era. It's a far better builing than your suggested one and it is a lot more interesting than the current burial tomb.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

It's 1Faith ingame, you might be observing the leader selection screen which has been broken since forever. And even at 3 faith, the building is by far the weakest one in the game. Tourism that early on does close to nothing, faith by that time is one of the weakest yields in the game. Temple is a decent building because it boosts religious pressure and reduces unhappiness from religious division by quite a bit.

The Piazza isn't even a real UB, it only exists as an activator for the 3 other UBs all which are a lot better than the current burial tomb.

The Jellingstone is a lot better base-building, it allows that base-building to be built in locations where it normally wouldn't be allowed to, it increases great people generated by a fair amount and it provides bonus-yield on kills, that scale with era. It's a far better builing than your suggested one and it is a lot more interesting than the current burial tomb.

No wonder I didn't notice Faith actually being smaller, I went Piety (as I always do when I expand a lot) and it was almost 100 anyway so I paid no attention - but then I rarely pay attention to details regarding any yield anyway. Yeah, if it's only 1 then it could use a buff. Perhaps +1F+1G or something.

Pizza UBs better than current burial tomb? Are we even playing the same game? -15% gold cost +3Gold per TR better than +7C +5S +2T per city that comes much earlier? How? Especially considering by this point in the game Venice shouldn't have money problems period, how is that measly amount going to make a change? I never take that one.

The +2F+2T per improvement one is actually good... Except Burial Tomb means you only need as many cities as Enrico has great improvements to get equal tourism - except you get it earlier and can easily make art combination to get more. You will get less Food, yes, but in no way is 2 Food better than 7Culture and 5 Science. No matter how you play, you can't say it's otherwise. The Arsenale is cool, but not "Get as much Science as all the Scientific buildings of Ancient+Classical era combined, while getting way more Culture than all Ancient+Classical era buildings give" cool

If the Burial is bad because "Early Tourism doesn't matter", then how is this one good? Egypt supports wide, Egypt has been likely getting much more Tourism than this one will by the time you get it and Egypt can always just settle more cities to get even more. GPs are harder to get than cities. You're forgetting Tourism buffs up your trade routes a lot too.


Jellingstone being allowed to be built in other locations hardly matters because it won't give your landlocked cities any palpable benefit anyway. It gets +2 base C, which Tomb also gets. The +5P+5C part requires actual effort, will not happen every turn, but then I admit it is more interesting than the Tomb.

I still don't understand how the proposed tomb is bad. Holds its own in its era, gets Tourism which IIRC no unique building of that time gets as well as combos, and Faith.

It definitely wouldn't be the worst UB anyway, considering it gets decent yields of its own time and would get Skola-tier yields once Archaeology is researched.

 

[Funak]

Pizza UBs better than current burial tomb? Are we even playing the same game? -15% gold cost +3Gold per TR better than +7C +5S +2T per city that comes much earlier? How? Especially considering by this point in the game Venice shouldn't have money problems period, how is that measly amount going to make a change? I never take that one.

The +2F+2T per improvement one is actually good... Except Burial Tomb means you only need as many cities as Enrico has great improvements to get equal tourism - except you get it earlier and can easily make art combination to get more. You will get less Food, yes, but in no way is 2 Food better than 7Culture and 5 Science. No matter how you play, you can't say it's otherwise. The Arsenale is cool, but not "Get as much Science as all the Scientific buildings of Ancient+Classical era combined, while getting way more Culture than all Ancient+Classical era buildings give" cool

-10% investment cost, +3 gold per TR, +4+ WC votes, merchant specialist
or
+15% production +6 defense +unique promotion for all ships
or
+2Food/tourism for all GPtiles/villages, free museum(slotwise), artist specialist

Along with the bonuses already from Piazza, yeah they are far superior to the Burial tomb, and far more interesting.

Jellingstone being allowed to be built in other locations hardly matters because it won't give your landlocked cities any palpable benefit anyway. It gets +2 base C, which Tomb also gets. The +5P+5C part requires actual effort, will not happen every turn, but then I admit it is more interesting than the Tomb.

You've never placed an inland city with a few coast-tiles in the third circle or even a fish or two? Happens quite a lot for me anyways.
The reason why the production and culture from kills feels more interesting is both because they scale with era and because both the yields feel like something of substance, you're going to expand your borders faster and you're going to build units/buildings faster if you kill units, that's interesting. I'll admit that as a bonus it isn't exactly fantastic, both those yields drop in value a lot faster than they scale with era, but they remain interesting. And the +15% GPP part is solid.

I still don't understand how the proposed tomb is bad. Holds its own in its era, gets Tourism which IIRC no unique building of that time gets as well as combos, and Faith.

It definitely wouldn't be the worst UB anyway, considering it gets decent yields of its own time and would get Skola-tier yields once Archaeology is researched.

Because even with the current yields on it, the Burial tomb is about as interesting as a bag of rocks. Without the Burial tomb, their current UA would be the worst one in the game, a 20% bonus while building wonders? That's like 1/20th of the time, meaning on average you're receiving an extra +1% production from it. Synergy with GA that doubles the effect? Without any GA-triggers in the kit that's also completely meh.
It's not as if you can control when you build wonders anyways, they are available at a specific moment and at that moment you either decide to build it or decide not to, you can't wait for a GA to trigger and you can't exactly trigger a GA yourself (unless you use an artist).


Don't get me wrong here, I absolutely despise the current Burial tomb, it is absolutely not interesting in any way, shape or form, it also got reverse synergy with the rest of the theme, you generally want to go for tradition/aesthetics to get the most out of the wonder and GA bonuses, while you clearly want to spam as many burial-tombs as possible all over the place. Optimal strategy here would be something like capturing cities, annexing them, building burial tombs and then razing the cities to get city-count down.

To me the Egyptian unique building is not interesting, the Egyptian unique ability is not interesting and the Egyptian unique unit is not interesting. Nerfing any part of the civ right now would move Egypt from "not interesting" to "I have to mod this civ out of the game so the AI doesn't get stuck with it by mistake".


Also, please stop comparing it to the Skola, the Skola is garbage.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

-10% investment cost, +3 gold per TR, +4+ WC votes, merchant specialist
or
+15% production +6 defense +unique promotion for all ships
or
+2Food/tourism for all GPtiles/villages, free museum(slotwise), artist specialist

Along with the bonuses already from Piazza, yeah they are far superior to the Burial tomb, and far more interesting.



You've never placed an inland city with a few coast-tiles in the third circle or even a fish or two? Happens quite a lot for me anyways.
The reason why the production and culture from kills feels more interesting is both because they scale with era and because both the yields feel like something of substance, you're going to expand your borders faster and you're going to build units/buildings faster if you kill units, that's interesting. I'll admit that as a bonus it isn't exactly fantastic, both those yields drop in value a lot faster than they scale with era, but they remain interesting. And the +15% GPP part is solid.


Because even with the current yields on it, the Burial tomb is about as interesting as a bag of rocks. Without the Burial tomb, their current UA would be the worst one in the game, a 20% bonus while building wonders? That's like 1/20th of the time, meaning on average you're receiving an extra +1% production from it. Synergy with GA that doubles the effect? Without any GA-triggers in the kit that's also completely meh.
It's not as if you can control when you build wonders anyways, they are available at a specific moment and at that moment you either decide to build it or decide not to, you can't wait for a GA to trigger and you can't exactly trigger a GA yourself (unless you use an artist).


Don't get me wrong here, I absolutely despise the current Burial tomb, it is absolutely not interesting in any way, shape or form, it also got reverse synergy with the rest of the theme, you generally want to go for tradition/aesthetics to get the most out of the wonder and GA bonuses, while you clearly want to spam as many burial-tombs as possible all over the place. Optimal strategy here would be something like capturing cities, annexing them, building burial tombs and then razing the cities to get city-count down.

To me the Egyptian unique building is not interesting, the Egyptian unique ability is not interesting and the Egyptian unique unit is not interesting. Nerfing any part of the civ right now would move Egypt from "not interesting" to "I have to mod this civ out of the game so the AI doesn't get stuck with it by mistake".


Also, please stop comparing it to the Skola, the Skola is garbage.

If Skola is garbage, then how would any of the proposed BTs be the worst in the game?
But then... Yeah, I don't know if Skola (and Carolean too tbh, I mean who doesn't have March on his units by Industrial? Let alone with +10XP bonus every GG birth?) can even be called an unique in its current form so you have a point there. I concede, the only uniques Sweden gets are +1 Movement siege units from the UA.

I agree Egypt is not interesting, but... Isn't that the case with almost all the civs? And almost all the buildings? How is being boring an excuse for getting something as good as 7C5S2T in the classical era?

Also, you aren't making much sense in my opinion. You're bored by Egypt, so I'd assume you don't play it (if you play Egypt, why? You said you consider it boring), it's AI only then. Boring, straightforward buildings shouldn't ever be a reason to mod out a civ so AI doesn't get it. AI will, in fact, be always making much better use of an uncomplicated building. Jelling Stone might be awesome, but - face it - Harald is too incompetent to use it (unless he miraculously happens to be the runaway as he feeds upon the legions of stupid 27th July Tradition-takers who do nothing but settle cities)

For your typical Harald, Jelling is pretty much the same as a Lighthouse with +2Culture that will, perhaps, give him 5C+5P once in 20 turns, or even never if he decides to attack someone like me and I have fully prepared army placed in just the right places. AI Ramesses is getting a much better deal here - +2C+2T+1F and IIRC the script for AI filling out its wonders works

Or Mission. Don't get me started on that. Isabella never does anything right and is consistently one of the worst AIs so it's perhaps unfair, but the UB is - with the right preparation and choices - overpowering. Not when she uses it that is, it's just a castle that will give her gold she will spend on something stupid - if she survives that long. She's not the brightest tool in the shed so who knows if that will be the case.

Same with Colosseum, for Rome it is just an Arena with +3P+2C. He will kill some units, but unless he runs away, that won't make a difference. The runaways, whenever I play the game, are always religious civs like Ethiopia or Mayans (or rarely Carthage), Rome never run away in VP for me.

 

[Funak]

If Skola is garbage, then how would any of the proposed BTs be the worst in the game?
But then... Yeah, I don't know if Skola (and Carolean too tbh, I mean who doesn't have March on his units by Industrial? Let alone with +10XP bonus every GG birth?) can even be called an unique in its current form so you have a point there. I concede, the only uniques Sweden gets are +1 Movement siege units from the UA.

I agree Egypt is not interesting, but... Isn't that the case with almost all the civs? And almost all the buildings? How is being boring an excuse for getting something as good as 7C5S2T in the classical era?

I don't think all civs are boring, some have one or two boring/underwhelming uniques, Egypt have 3.
Having a building providing 7C 5S 2T 1R -1G, as opposed to a base building you normally don't even want to build in more than one city, unless you're going for piety. It might seem like a lot, but that's all the building does, there are no percentage bonuses, no scaling yields on kills or citygrowth, no unique promotions, no extra specialists and no bonus to great people. The building provides you with a bunch of yields that will hardly matter at all 2 eras later. It might give you an advantage up until that point, but from my observations of Egypt not even that seems to be true.

I think G added that Artifact thing to the Burial tomb to make the UA seem less boring and having it activate a bit earlier, but honestly look at either of the bonuses in a vacuum and they are both awful.

Also, you aren't making much sense in my opinion. You're bored by Egypt, so I'd assume you don't play it (if you play Egypt, why? You said you consider it boring), it's AI only then. Boring, straightforward buildings shouldn't ever be a reason to mod out a civ so AI doesn't get it. AI will, in fact, be always making much better use of an uncomplicated building. Jelling Stone might be awesome, but - face it - Harald is too incompetent to use it (unless he miraculously happens to be the runaway as he feeds upon the legions of stupid 27th July Tradition-takers who do nothing but settle cities)

I always play random, and I don't do restarts because I dislike a civ, so I've played quite a few games of Egypt since the change.

For your typical Harald, Jelling is pretty much the same as a Lighthouse with +2Culture that will, perhaps, give him 5C+5P once in 20 turns, or even never if he decides to attack someone like me and I have fully prepared army placed in just the right places. AI Ramesses is getting a much better deal here - +2C+2T+1F and IIRC the script for AI filling out its wonders works

I think you're severely underestimating how many units actually die in AI vs AI wars, they just keep throwing things away.

Or Mission. Don't get me started on that. Isabella never does anything right and is consistently one of the worst AIs so it's perhaps unfair, but the UB is - with the right preparation and choices - overpowering. Not when she uses it that is, it's just a castle that will give her gold she will spend on something stupid - if she survives that long. She's not the brightest tool in the shed so who knows if that will be the case.

The Mission is crazy powerful if your cities grow, which AI cities usually do. I don't see why an AI would handle this any differently than a player, I mean it's not like I would ever bother moving specialists around to get the most out of the turn I grew.

Same with Colosseum, for Rome it is just an Arena with +3P+2C. He will kill some units, but unless he runs away, that won't make a difference. The runaways, whenever I play the game, are always religious civs like Ethiopia or Mayans (or rarely Carthage), Rome never run away in VP for me.

The Colosseum used to be fantastic up until city-connections got gutted, now I'm not that sure anymore, still AI Rome seems to do quite a bit better than AI Egypt.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I don't think all civs are boring, some have one or two boring/underwhelming uniques, Egypt have 3.
Having a building providing 7C 5S 2T 1R -1G, as opposed to a base building you normally don't even want to build in more than one city, unless you're going for piety. It might seem like a lot, but that's all the building does, there are no percentage bonuses, no scaling yields on kills or citygrowth, no unique promotions, no extra specialists and no bonus to great people. The building provides you with a bunch of yields that will hardly matter at all 2 eras later. It might give you an advantage up until that point, but from my observations of Egypt not even that seems to be true.

I think G added that Artifact thing to the Burial tomb to make the UA seem less boring and having it activate a bit earlier, but honestly look at either of the bonuses in a vacuum and they are both awful.

You shouldn't look at bonuses in a vacuum. Let's say some civ has an UB Harbour that comes an era earlier and using it does nothing Harbour doesn't already except giving the city's main tile exact same bonuses as any Landmark would have at the point. Seems bad or, at most, decent? Yup.

Now consider that the UA of this Civ is "all Landmarks gain 10 of all yields". Seems bad? For sure it does, it's Industrial by the time you get Landmarks, it won't change a thing so late.

In a vacuum, they are all awful. Together, broken beyond belief. Same with current Egypt which has no real flaws tbh. The UB stands its ground decently even without UA, the unit is not bad like in vanilla.

I think you're severely underestimating how many units actually die in AI vs AI wars, they just keep throwing things away.

Yes, but how do you know who will be the one throwing units away pointlessly? What if he is on a continent with me and I'm just waiting for him to make a move/declared the war? Or what if he is just alone on the continent? Or what if other civs around him are all stronger and/or in a Smurf circle of friendship and Harald won't declare war? What if Harald is one of the Smurfs and doesn't want war?

Too many variables in which it's just a +2C Lighthouse for AI Harald. I wouldn't even consider playing a really peaceful Denmark if I was playing seriously - but AI may. Way worse than +2C+2T of BT in that case.

The Mission is crazy powerful if your cities grow, which AI cities usually do. I don't see why an AI would handle this any differently than a player, I mean it's not like I would ever bother moving specialists around to get the most out of the turn I grew.

Mission turns from good to great if you go Piety which gives you so much Faith and Gold, your Missions will be giving you lots and lots of Prophets and big money shots. If Isabella's AI says "NO it's Aesthetics/Statecraft time", Isabella gets much less than she would have gotten otherwise.

Progress is likewise good for the +2G per city, but not mandatory - it doesn't change much. I prefer Authority because it's more interesting.

The Colosseum used to be fantastic up until city-connections got gutted, now I'm not that sure anymore, still AI Rome seems to do quite a bit better than AI Egypt.

Not in my case, Egypt always did better than Rome and Denmark - unless it went Tradition. Even before the changes.

But yes city connections are very bad now. I don't know why the change was made, it seems a bit unfun to me. AI is more hurt than me by this, I just don't build roads and usually wait for Lighthouses (only building roads if I HAVE to) - AI will waste fifty billion GPT on a worthless road, often in cases they could've made a Lighthouse instead. Bad idea.

 

[Funak]

You shouldn't look at bonuses in a vacuum. Let's say some civ has an UB Harbour that comes an era earlier and using it does nothing Harbour doesn't already except giving the city's main tile exact same bonuses as any Landmark would have at the point. Seems bad or, at most, decent? Yup.

Now consider that the UA of this Civ is "all Landmarks gain 10 of all yields". Seems bad? For sure it does, it's Industrial by the time you get Landmarks, it won't change a thing so late.

In a vacuum, they are all awful. Together, broken beyond belief. Same with current Egypt which has no real flaws tbh. The UB stands its ground decently even without UA, the unit is not bad like in vanilla.

I was just saying that the yields you're seeing is a product of the UB and the UA working together. Just like the Impi isn't considered overpowered despite pretty much trashing everything in the same era with the UB and the UA backing it.

I think even just looking at it as the massive pile of yields it is, the building isn't fun and isn't especially good.

Yes, but how do you know who will be the one throwing units away pointlessly? What if he is on a continent with me and I'm just waiting for him to make a move/declared the war? Or what if he is just alone on the continent? Or what if other civs around him are all stronger and/or in a Smurf circle of friendship and Harald won't declare war? What if Harald is one of the Smurfs and doesn't want war?

Too many variables in which it's just a +2C Lighthouse for AI Harald. I wouldn't even consider playing a really peaceful Denmark if I was playing seriously - but AI may. Way worse than +2C+2T of BT in that case.

I'm still not seeing this smurf-thing you're talking about so I'll just ignore this part. In my games at least one AI is at war with another AI at all times. Didn't have a single civ actually starting Authority in my current game and people were still at war with each-other at all times, Harold is no exception to that.

Mission turns from good to great if you go Piety which gives you so much Faith and Gold, your Missions will be giving you lots and lots of Prophets and big money shots. If Isabella's AI says "NO it's Aesthetics/Statecraft time", Isabella gets much less than she would have gotten otherwise.

Progress is likewise good for the +2G per city, but not mandatory - it doesn't change much. I prefer Authority because it's more interesting.

It certainly have some synergy with Piety (and Isabella pretty much always goes Piety anyways) but I would hardly call it mandatory. Founding a religion, spreading it and picking tithe however could be considered mandatory and Isabella seems to have a hard time performing the first part of that. That being said it's still a free castle that buffs pressure and provides gold on city-growth even if she completely fails to faith .

But yes city connections are very bad now. I don't know why the change was made, it seems a bit unfun to me. AI is more hurt than me by this, I just don't build roads and usually wait for Lighthouses (only building roads if I HAVE to) - AI will waste fifty billion GPT on a worthless road, often in cases they could've made a Lighthouse instead. Bad idea.

This is going pretty off topic, but yeah never understood this change at all. Automated workers keeps building roads that are 6 gpt losses, which means the AI workers will build those as well.