[BERT] Exploiting Kavithan Protectorate Bonus

[vorlon_mi]

Building on the other threat for Slavic Federation, let's consider how to exploit the base bonus of KP.

Cities require 30/40/50% less Culture or Energy :energy: to expand tiles

Sorry, the icons are from Civ 4.

How might we exploit those? Thoughts --

• While constructing more culture-producing buildings, any KP land city will spread its influence in fewer turns. More hexes to improve, more food, more territory to control.
• One could space cities further apart, allowing space for future Earthling settlements for a Purity victory, and the culture sprawl would fill in the gaps.
• Aquatic cities don't grow by culture, but rather grow by moving. With the reduced rate of purchase for buying hexes, one could consider moving a city only once, then buying the tiles in the second ring to get those resources.

IIRC, when a city is conquered, it retains the hexes it controlled under its previous owner. Thus, invading and taking a large AI city means it can probably feed itself. But acquiring a smaller city (or two) in a peace deal presents a challenge. Puppeting the city means that I can't set its build agenda; the cheaper expansion costs now that KP owns it means that it can grab territory in fewer turns than other sponsors puppet cities.

 

[Navelgazer]

Hi! So, I messed around with KP over the last few days, having made a point in the other thread that I just had zero interest in them, I guess to prove myself wrong or something?

Anyway, it went great. Whether or not you find KP boring, their ability is definitely strong, which makes up for it a bit. In my case, I was on a Standard-size Primordial Atlantean map, Soyuz difficulty, and used her ability to spread out onto 1-tile islands in a large patch of ocean, leaning way into both Science and Culture, growing huge, quick territories for "technically land" cities that were basically all water (plus one aquatic city because there was a boatload of Xenomass, I was going Harmony, and I wanted a Drydocks.) Because My capital was the only city on an island with multiple land tiles, it got the Mind Flower and was very easy to defend. I had managed to avoid any wars until its construction was completed, and even then only FI turned on me, but they weren't going to get any land units anywhere near enough to stomp on the flower, and were at war with the rest of the world by that point anyway.

(Side Note: By the time I started construction on the Mind Flower, Polystralia, FI and PUA were making progress on their own Transcendence, Promised Land, and Emancipation victories, respectively, though not quite as far along as I was. I was also at 9/9 respect and cooperative status with everyone still on the board. Hutama, who was also most of the way towards a Domination Victory, was totally cool with it (maybe because he was also Harmony?) Arshia, as always, stayed besties with me through thick and thin. But Élodie and Barre both protested. Barre's respect for me dropped to 7/9, but rebounded back within a few turns. Élodie's dropped immediately to 1/9 and stayed there.)

Anyway, probably not precisely how the design was envisioned, but a fun, slightly perverse method of using her benefits to the max in creating an oceanic empire.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I think KP was the first game I ever played, so that tells you I really liked the idea of fast growing territory. It's a passive, so you don't really have to do anything to take advantage. I would say you could ignore culture buildings a little bit, but I don't often since I need my virtues!

 

[Navelgazer]

I continue to be enthralled by the "Survive, Thrive, Win" idea that @legalizefreedom mentioned in the "flawed, underrated gem" thread. And not just as AI priorities, but the set of priorities the player should be progressing through if they're playing at the right level of challenge. And since I've been thinking a lot about the Sponsor designs, I'm starting to think of them in terms of which of those three stages of the game they really assist with. So if you'll indulge me:

Al Falah: Win, pretty much more purely than any other sponsor. In any power rankings you'll read (of the few that exist, anyway) they'll be ranked at or near the top, and for good reason - their ability is very powerful. But it also likely won't come into play really until the endgame. Maybe you'll pop computing early if you're really trying to get through Computing quick or something, but generally speaking, the earlier stages of the game always have something worth building going on, and Al Falah's alchemy only makes a difference if you've put in the legwork to get good production going anyway.

Pan-Asian Cooperative: Thrive. One of the sponsor designs with a clear push to play in a certain, unique way, PAC wants you to go wide and push for leaf techs to get some admittedly minor or niche bonuses, but some decent Capital from them as well (which might be the better end of the deal, to be honest.) 8 DC per turn per wonder buys some nice agreements if you lean into it, and if you choose your friends wisely the bonuses from those will be worth more than from any wonders you build.

North Sea Alliance: Survive/Thrive. The defensive bonus for aquatic cities helps you to deal with both early Kraken/Sea Dragon attacks and a little later when Chongsu/Brasilia/SF is swooping in, but the movement bonus helps you grab territory without losing too many turns building up your infrastructure. Pretty straightforward.

Franco-Ibebria: Thrive. For the most part. Virtues are a grab-bag, but for the most part fall into helping your empire flourish.

Chungsu: Thrive, or get started thriving faster, maybe? Maybe it's just me who feels like getting the Spy Agency built is like the first major milestone in the game narrative, taking you from "dealing primarily with aliens and settling and trading" to "dealing primarily with neighbors." Han Jae-Moon's science bonus only feels impactful in the early game, but that's an invitation to let it snowball so that, if you play your cards right, you can stay ahead of your neighbors for them first time you meet one of them.

Polystralia: Thrive/Win. Obviously their bonus is absurd, as long as you can keep your health in check going as wide as you want to (and with the Commonwealth of the Pacific, the sky's the limit.) There's no Victory Condition that's not, in the end, about science and production, and Hutama gets so much production from trade routes that building up a superior science infrastructure is child's play. (Side note: next time I play as them, I think I'll have to refuse to reverse the polarity, just to make things slightly more fair.)

Kavithan Protectorate: Thrive. Very Thrive. So much Thrive. But as we see with Polystralia, a boost to infrastructure that substantial plays into any win-con very well.

INTEGR: Thrive/Win. Better at the Diplomacy game than PAC (and obviously better at it in the AI's hands, in my experience) cheaper agreements means being able to afford them while still maxing your traits out, which is flexible and adaptive for Thriving in a way that should make Élodie weep, but the 75% DC discount on units and buildings means a massive end-game pool of currency for Lena in a way that simply isn't accessible to other players trying to protect their mind flower or pump units through their emancipation gate.

Brasilia: Thrive, mostly by default. Their lack of combat bonus means they've got nothing to help them survive the early game and the free techs from extra war score are, to be generous, unreliable for any Win Con. It's hard for me to disassociate Rejinaldo from the Might Virtue Tree, though, since what his design really does is push you into a specific way of playing, and the Might Tree definitely has some nice perks for that. Also, while his DC bonus is pretty negligible (though not as bad as I've hear some folks complaining about), synergizing his abilities to go deep into militarization gives you a lot of agreements that anyone you're not currently at war with will be gobbling up. Domination is a win-con, and Brasilia will build up to eventually become a worthy contender for it, but that's pretty much all based on how you'll support their design, rather than the design itself.

People's African Union: Survive/Thrive. More populous cities defend themselves better and produce more units, and specialists fuel your engine. Pretty simple, really.

ARC: Win. More than anyone else, including Chongsu, Suzanne can sit back and isolate as soon as she meets everyone, secure in her ability to lap the field in science and shoot towards endgame. Her bonus also scales towards endgame more impactfully than Han's does (at least in my admittedly limited experience with them. I could still have a Chungsu game that totally blows my mind about them.) She's got nothing to help in the Survival era, and for a while she'll be getting more energy than science, but once her train leaves the station, she's going straight towards victory (in a human player's hands, at least.)

Slavic Federation: I'm not going to claim to understand SF yet, but I've mostly been leaning towards Harmony, and I think I'm seeing that they're simply a much more natural fit for Supremacy/Purity playstyles. Thrive, I guess? I'm not sure and I'm not going to claim expertise.

EDIT because I missed Brasilia somehow.