[GS] Eleanor of Aquitaine Discussion Thread

One thing people are missing about this ability, too, imho, has to do with the fact that GS will (hopefully) make diplomacy more meaningful. If they do it right, then warmongers who cause a lot of grievance may become pariahs and targets of international coalitions and whatnot. Enter Eleanor who can steal your cities from under you (without it going a free city first, so without giving you a chance to get it back - at least not without incurring grievance against her) and come out smelling like roses (no pun intended).

I can see her tactics being flipping cities on someone's border, then (when the former owner of those cities gets pissed off and invades to recapture them) amassing enough grievance against the invader, so she can capture a powerful city from them instead without much repercussions - and end up flipping the entire civ.

I can see how this can synergize even better with England and Workshop of the World, too.
 
DWilson said:

I just wanted to add this for those who think Eleanor, who was ruler of neither France nor England, shouldn't be in the game.

The blue areas here are Aquitaine, her own lands. She inherited them and retained them on her annulment with the King of France. The green areas are those under French rule, while the red areas are those under "English" rule. When she was married to the King of either country, together they held dominion over these lands. From the French aspect, while she never ran the kingdom (at least for a notable amount of time), her own territories make up much of modern day France and are generally considered an aspect of French culture and history. For the English aspect, she did notably run the kingdom, even if not the official ruler, in her husband's place (as well as having notable impact on the continued ruling families in England during and after her life, for better or worse).

Not to mention her role in the culture and diplomacy of her time.

While both France and England have more notable leaders they could have selected, Eleanor is by no means simply a figurehead or pandering attempt to include more female leaders.

(Not that many have complained in this thread, as most here who would protest on these boards made their complaints earlier in time following the leak).
Click to expand...

I would add that she also actually did run the whole Kingdom of England after her husband's death, when her son, Richard Coeur de Lion, was away crusading.
 
Martinus said:
One thing people are missing about this ability, too, imho, has to do with the fact that GS will (hopefully) make diplomacy more meaningful. If they do it right, then warmongers who cause a lot of grievance may become pariahs and targets of international coalitions and whatnot. Enter Eleanor who can steal your cities from under you (without it going a free city first, so without giving you a chance to get it back - at least not without incurring grievance against her) and come out smelling like roses (no pun intended).

I can see her tactics being flipping cities on someone's border, then (when the former owner of those cities gets pissed off and invades to recapture them) amassing enough grievance against the invader, so she can capture a powerful city from them instead without much repercussions - and end up flipping the entire civ.

I can see how this can synergize even better with England and Workshop of the World, too.
Click to expand...
You make a good point there. I remain cautiously optimistic about the grievance system working quite that well but signs mostly seem good. Being able to snaffle cities without going to war is pretty attractive.

I'm definitely looking forward to the livestream and for once I'll be able to catch it thanks to working from home!

(we'll leave aside that I'm only getting to work from home because I broke my elbow...)
 
I like the idea of this ability but not sure how strong it is. If it does end up slightly weak, I’d want to see the -1 Loyalty effect doubled by GWs that have the theming bonus. I’d also like to see her get a stronger bread and circus project to help her annex new territories faster.
 
Starvation and unhappiness is -10 while fed and ecstatic is +6 So the difference is 16. You need 16 great works to have the same ability as a strong army. I imagine therefore they must be stack-able across cities. 16 is a lot of great works, maybe they have changed relics to be great works but they were not classed great works before... The bank can hold any great work, but cannot house relics nor artifacts. If you need 16 then realistically you need museums up so you are +5 per city. Getting these up in frontier towns will not be fast. You also may have to dedicate spies to the task to get rid of governors and build entertainment districts .... all of this when I have 3 knights and a ram over there that can take the city in 2 turns.

For England no redcoat or free units (redcoat is really the only decent thing England has)
For France no +3 vs all civs all game, no free extra spy early at Castles, no spy free promotion (big losses)

Eleanor is something different to play with but she really is a Disney princess Pretty & Useless.
If you look at the losses I imagine Eleanor x2 will be bottom tier.
 
Just for clarification: the Giovanni di Medici ability says:

"Instantly builds a Market and a Bank in a Commercial Hub district. The Bank gains 2 Great Work slots which can be filled by anything except Relics."

For me, if they had to add the specification about Relics, that means Relics are Great Works. So Court of Love should work with relics. Not sure about Artifacts, though.


Concerning questions about the Agenda, I think we all think it wrong. Agendas are not supposed (as I see them) to represent how the actual, real leader would act but rather to simulate if the AI played as a human player.

For example, Dom Satan: some people say that the fact he's angry about you gaining GP is a punishment for "playing well" and that, historically, since he patronized a lot of Great People not from Brazil, he should be glad to see you recruit a lot of GP.
But suppose you're in a multiplayer game, and a human player is playing Pedro II. You gain a lot of Great Peoples; what would be the human player reaction? He would be mad, because you steal the very reason he picked this leader. Same for others (you play Tamar and the only thing you want to do is build walls because it's the only thing the civ can do; you play Qin and all you want is Wonders so if they're picked by others it's dull; you play Pericles and you want to have all city-states for you; and on and on and on).

(A small aparte about Dom Satan: in fact, you're right when people say that Pedro patronize a lot of people outside Brazil; but it's the way Great People work in Civilization. When you gain Aristotle in America, that does not mean Aristotle was born in America in this parallel universe. If you read carefully the Golden Age Point you gained, it says that Aristotle choose to use his talents in your civilization. Not that he's born in it. So, even historically, Dom Satan being mad at you gaining GP is correct, because he's mad artists and engineers prefered to be patronized by Catherine di Medici instead of him).


And, beside all this reactions: do you think, when you insta-flip a city from a neighboring civ, the leader would say to you: "Please do not settle near my borders". Well, beauty, I do not settle near, I just steal your cities, huge difference.
 
I guess another thing to note is that she doesn’t need to flip the city right away.

Reduction of loyalty has ugly effects right up until the flip:

  • Loyal (76-100): no penalties
  • Wavering Loyalty (51-75): 75% Population growth, -25% to all yields
  • Disloyal (26-50): 25% Population growth, -50% to all yields
  • Unrest (0-25): no Population growth, -100% to all yields
So Dido sidling next to a low pop city with a new capital, or a wonder/theatre square spamming Eleanor could be unpleasant. And once the city starts getting hit with penalties, it would eventually flip without some significant investment from its owner
 
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I sort of see Eleanor as they leader you pick when you want to play England or France with even less advantages... So, Deity or Immortal, pick Eleanor, and then try founding Colonial Cities or building all the Wonders... lots of challenge.

England’s RND is just not strong enough to carry England with Eleanor. Also, just feels weird England having just one UU, but maybe that’s just me.

France’s UA is also very weak and their UU a bit of a bust. Even if they buff the UI... yeah, not much to carry France with Eleanor in charge.

You’d think they’d give Eleanor some art slots in her capital or something?

Anyway. I still like her. But you're sort of deliberately playing a weaker version of two already not that strong Civs.
 
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acluewithout said:
I sort of see Eleanor as they leader you pick when you want to play England or France with even less advantages... So, Deity or Immortal, pick Eleanor, and then try founding Colonial Cities or building all the Wonders... lots of challenge.

England’s RND is just not strong enough to carry England with Eleanor. Also, just feels weird England having just one UU, but maybe that’s just me.

France’s UA is also very weak and their UU a bit of a bust. Even if they buff the UI... yeah, not much to carry France with Eleanor in charge.

You’d think they’d give Eleanor some art slots in her capital or something?

Anyway. I still like her. But your sort of deliberately playing a weaker version of already not that strong Civs.
Click to expand...

I do agree here. The LAs are probably the best part about France and England, and I’d hestitate to call Eleanor’s “weaker”, its certainly more situational.

I think giving a small flat bonus to something might have given it that edge. Maybe like a small release of loyalty pressure when you expend a great A/M/W would have been the ticket.

EDIT: also just to say I do think Frances UU is pretty decent indeed. It’s a shame you can’t upgrade it, but it’s routinely the strongest unit when it appears and I’ve wrecked a few continents with it. (Though that does go against Eleanor’s peaceful flips to avoid grievances)
 
My guess is England, France and also China and America have fairly weak UUs UAs and Unique Infrastructure to enable them to have more powerful and varied Alt Leaders.

... I think the RND might need some love and Frances UI and UU definetly need love (although perhaps I’m wrong about the UU).
 
Victoria said:
Starvation and unhappiness is -10 while fed and ecstatic is +6 So the difference is 16. You need 16 great works to have the same ability as a strong army. I imagine therefore they must be stack-able across cities. 16 is a lot of great works, maybe they have changed relics to be great works but they were not classed great works before... The bank can hold any great work, but cannot house relics nor artifacts. If you need 16 then realistically you need museums up so you are +5 per city. Getting these up in frontier towns will not be fast. You also may have to dedicate spies to the task to get rid of governors and build entertainment districts .... all of this when I have 3 knights and a ram over there that can take the city in 2 turns.

For England no redcoat or free units (redcoat is really the only decent thing England has)
For France no +3 vs all civs all game, no free extra spy early at Castles, no spy free promotion (big losses)

Eleanor is something different to play with but she really is a Disney princess Pretty & Useless.
If you look at the losses I imagine Eleanor x2 will be bottom tier.
Click to expand...

I am sorry, but what??? Population and number of cities have a more direct impact on the loyalty pressure Eleanor can exert and there are other tricks, as mentioned by other posters in this thread (Amani, Bread and Circuses, Earning a Golden Age, building Mont St. Michel and/or Cathedrals, spreading a foreign religion). Eleanor's bonuses do not exist to flip loyal, extactic cites of the same population as her own cities. If they did, she could be ridiculously overpowered, she would simply absorb any city near her like an unstoppable pink amoeba.

Her abilities exist to pick up small or disloyal cities for free, (lol this is *very* unlattering analogy but I'm making it anyway) like a pack of ravenous hyenas cleaning up a wildebeest carcass after the lion pride has already had eaten the good bits. Forward settle Eleanor and she eats your cities. Attack Eleanor's neighbour and she'll eat *their* remaining cities AND your newly conquered cities too if you're not careful. Without any stream info it's hard to rate how powerful her abilities are (or aren't) in reality, but I think you're making a mistake by staring yourself blind on the ability's effects in se and instead of looking at them in medias res.
 
I think it has already been said, but imagine Eleanor as England on a Terra-style map. You are another civ and just put a bunch of cities on another continent. In comes Eleanor with her gold (due to Royal Navy Dockyards/trade routes) and her production (due to the Workshop of the World) bonus.

She plops up a city nearby, puts Reyna there, and buys the RND (for the loyalty bonus) and the Theater district there, and buys or quickly builds the Amphiteatre and the Arts Museums, and moves her artworks there.
Victoria said:
Starvation and unhappiness is -10 while fed and ecstatic is +6 So the difference is 16. You need 16 great works to have the same ability as a strong army. I imagine therefore they must be stack-able across cities. 16 is a lot of great works, maybe they have changed relics to be great works but they were not classed great works before... The bank can hold any great work, but cannot house relics nor artifacts. If you need 16 then realistically you need museums up so you are +5 per city. Getting these up in frontier towns will not be fast. You also may have to dedicate spies to the task to get rid of governors and build entertainment districts .... all of this when I have 3 knights and a ram over there that can take the city in 2 turns.

For England no redcoat or free units (redcoat is really the only decent thing England has)
For France no +3 vs all civs all game, no free extra spy early at Castles, no spy free promotion (big losses)

Eleanor is something different to play with but she really is a Disney princess Pretty & Useless.
If you look at the losses I imagine Eleanor x2 will be bottom tier.
Click to expand...
As has already been said, the best part about Eleanor's ability is the insta-flip. People focusing on the loyalty from GW are really misunderstanding this ability.
 
@Lord Lakely I know want to play a giant pink amoeba Civ.

I think this has already been canvassed, but it looks to me the “real” ability is actually the insta-flip. I think the additional loyalty from great works is more about Eleanor having (slightly) more loyalty than other Civs in order to benefit from the insta-flip ability. But to actually get the flip to happen, you’ll probably need to actually generate loyalty pressure the old fashion way.
 
acluewithout said:
@Lord Lakely I know want to play a giant pink amoeba Civ.

I think this has already been canvassed, but it looks to me the “real” ability is actually the insta-flip. I think the additional loyalty from great works is more about Eleanor having (slightly) more loyalty than other Civs in order to benefit from the insta-flip ability. But to actually get the flip to happen, you’ll probably need to actually generate loyalty pressure the old fashion way.
Click to expand...

Tend to think this way: the GW loyalty normally would not allow you to turn any city by itself, but it is almost a counter (in value), to governor placement normally used to avoid loyalty lods. That is quite big already.
 
Two thumbs up for the Disney-like sparkly, spin, hair-change.

Or whatever you want to call it.
 
Martinus said:
I think it has already been said, but imagine Eleanor as England on a Terra-style map. You are another civ and just put a bunch of cities on another continent. In comes Eleanor with her gold (due to Royal Navy Dockyards/trade routes) and her production (due to the Workshop of the World) bonus.

She plops up a city nearby, puts Reyna there, and buys the RND (for the loyalty bonus) and the Theater district there, and buys or quickly builds the Amphiteatre and the Arts Museums, and moves her artworks there.

As has already been said, the best part about Eleanor's ability is the insta-flip. People focusing on the loyalty from GW are really misunderstanding this ability.
Click to expand...

The insta-flip is very powerful. I think Eleanor will flip a lot more cities by being at war with a neighbor, pillaging the city into starvation, and just waiting for it to flip due to loyalty pressure. Which will give you the city without the population loss of conquering it, and I assume also without the grievances associated with that. And with pillaging giving more yields in GS and wall being stronger, there are other benefits as well.

One thing that seems to be missed in the discussion about the relative benefits of Eleanor's GW loyalty pressure is that loyalty pressure doesn't have an effect unless your pressure is higher than your opponent's pressure. If your opponent has 20 you get the same effect whether you have 20 or 19 or 2 or 0, assuming the city starts at full loyalty. But if a few Great Works gets you from 19 to 25 pressure, that city will now flip in 20 turns.
 
Martinus said:
and buys the RND (for the loyalty bonus) and the Theater district there, and buys or quickly builds the Amphiteatre and the Arts Museums, and moves her artworks there
Click to expand...
Yeah sounds so easy compared to 3 knights and a Ram.
You have just spent maybe 2500 gold, have a 1 pop city with no walls against a civ that probably has a 10 popcity supported by 3-7 other cities. To build a theatre you will have to get to 4 pop, an entertainment district, 7 pop. Think it through.

Look I am not saying it cannot be done and it will be different and fun. I am just saying in my opinion what she gets is worse than what she had, either as France or England. Don’t get cross, I wrote the loyalty guide and probably have played England as much as anyone has... and I have played France at least 20 times. I have some idea what I am talking about. Sure, let’s wait and see, we can all be wrong and find she is mediocre.
 
Contrary to what the video said this is not the first leader in the franchise that can be played with multiple civilizations.
 
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