pre-release info First Look: Confucius - Discussion

[GeneralZift]

Seems very strong IMO. +25% city growth is huge, essentially translates to a boost that size in every yield generated by cities. +2 science per specialist also compares very favourably to something like Augustus'+2 production in capital per town. Production is usually worth more than science in Civ, but I also expect far more specialists than towns in most games.

Still, as Towns can't have specialists (IIRC), this is a leader whose ability strongly synergises with itself and a Many-Cities-Few-Towns (MCFT) strategy. The opposite of Augustus' OCMT emphasis.

You should just call them tall and wide, these acronyms are slightly obtuse imo.

I reckon Augustus ability is much better for early game and Confucius is strangely better suited for late game.

 

[Zaarin]

Seems very strong IMO. +25% city growth is huge, essentially translates to a boost that size in every yield generated by cities. +2 science per specialist also compares very favourably to something like Augustus'+2 production in capital per town. Production is usually worth more than science in Civ, but I also expect far more specialists than towns in most games.

Still, as Towns can't have specialists (IIRC), this is a leader whose ability strongly synergises with itself and a Many-Cities-Few-Towns (MCFT) strategy. The opposite of Augustus' OCMT emphasis.

Augustus and Kongzi are going to loathe each other.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Also, since population drives border growth, Confucius will have broad cities.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Augustus and Kongzi are going to loathe each other.

The Marcus Aurelius embassy to the Han dynasty is never going to happen in this timeline

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Interesting that he's not cultural. Scientific makes sense if they want to pair him with Academy buildings, and Han China, so maybe it would have made more sense to give Expansionist to Han?

Not being able to sleep tonight, came in handy for a change

Just tonight?

 

[Leyrann]

Guanxi: Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount for having the most Specialists in an empire. Decrease Relationship by a Small Amount for the leader with the least amount of Specialists in an empire. Only triggers if Confucius has at least one Specialist.

So did we already know that agendas (or at least this particular agenda) trigger only on the empire with the most and the least specialists, rather than on everyone?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

So did we already know that agendas (or at least this particular agenda) trigger only on the empire with the most and the least specialists, rather than on everyone?

It looks like it's just this agenda

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

So did we already know that agendas (or at least this particular agenda) trigger only on the empire with the most and the least specialists, rather than on everyone?

I must say, this looks like a much more positive take on Agendas, for many reasons: requires him to have the thing he likes, only affects the best and worst civs, has a bigger positive impact than a negative one.

I hope it's not just this one that has been improved!

 

[Zaarin]

So did we already know that agendas (or at least this particular agenda) trigger only on the empire with the most and the least specialists, rather than on everyone?

I must say, this looks like a much more positive take on Agendas, for many reasons: requires him to have the thing he likes, only affects the best and worst civs, has a bigger positive impact than a negative one.

I hope it's not just this one that has been improved!

Yes, if we're going to have agendas, I want to see more agendas like this and fewer like...all the other agendas.

 

[chaosprophet]

Seems very strong IMO. +25% city growth is huge, essentially translates to a boost that size in every yield generated by cities. +2 science per specialist also compares very favourably to something like Augustus'+2 production in capital per town. Production is usually worth more than science in Civ, but I also expect far more specialists than towns in most games.

Still, as Towns can't have specialists (IIRC), this is a leader whose ability strongly synergises with itself and a Many-Cities-Few-Towns (MCFT) strategy. The opposite of Augustus' OCMT emphasis.

I guess depends on how it works. Seems like in this game the growth on your cities comes more from food being sent by towns than the food the city itself produces. So that bonus significance can change a lot depending if that % affects all the food being sent to the city, or only it's own.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I must say, this looks like a much more positive take on Agendas, for many reasons: requires him to have the thing he likes, only affects the best and worst civs, has a bigger positive impact than a negative one.

Yes, if we're going to have agendas, I want to see more agendas like this and fewer like...all the other agendas.

Maybe. I'm not so sure. I think in actual gameplay this will be the same as "likes the biggest empire in the world, dislikes the smallest".

I'm still not seeing anything that would make a game with him as your neighbour play any different from a game with anybody else as your neighbour.

 

[Zaarin]

Maybe. I'm not so sure. I think in actual gameplay this will be the same as "likes the biggest empire in the world, dislikes the smallest".

I'm still not seeing anything that would make a game with him as your neighbour play any different from a game with anybody else as your neighbour.

I still don't love agendas, but at least Confucius' agenda has limits and restrictions--e.g., he's not going to start screeching at you about your lack of specialists when he himself has no specialists. It's at least a step in the right direction.

 

[TreVor_ish]

I still don't love agendas, but at least Confucius' agenda has limits and restrictions--e.g., he's not going to start screeching at you about your lack of specialists when he himself has no specialists. It's at least a step in the right direction.

Wait till we get past few dlc's and agendas start to become wacky.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Maybe. I'm not so sure. I think in actual gameplay this will be the same as "likes the biggest empire in the world, dislikes the smallest".

I'm still not seeing anything that would make a game with him as your neighbour play any different from a game with anybody else as your neighbour.

I suppose it's not quite as simple as liking the biggest and disliking the smallest, because you could in theory have a huge empire that is mostly towns - which obviously wouldn't have so many specialists.

The whole agenda idea is still pretty basic, but the thing that I found most annoying in VI, was that I ended up having the exact same interactions with every leader in every game. In this case, at least you'll only see this if you're particularly rich or poor in specialists, so my relationship with him might be different from one game to the next.

 

[chaosprophet]

All the other things with agendas aside, wouldn't it make more sense to dislike those who have more than him? If I have too little he will declare war on me.... to help me get more specialists!?

 

[Zoeff]

Seeing some slight UI improvements in this new trailer. There's a black box behind the urban district yields in this shot of the player getting a growth event:

EDIT: nvm! It looks like these were there in the livestream from 2 weeks ago.

There is however a little loading bar serving as a timer before the hover-over tooltip appears. This is a neat QoL feature that I don't think we've seen before:

 

[Black Gate]

All the other things with agendas aside, wouldn't it make more sense to dislike those who have more than him? If I have too little he will declare war on me.... to help me get more specialists!?

I see it less as him actually *liking* you but more about willingness to be warlike. Small state? Bully them into tribute (or out of existence). Big state? Play nice, they're too strong to beat.

 

[Navelgazer]

Seems very strong IMO. +25% city growth is huge, essentially translates to a boost that size in every yield generated by cities. +2 science per specialist also compares very favourably to something like Augustus'+2 production in capital per town. Production is usually worth more than science in Civ, but I also expect far more specialists than towns in most games.

Still, as Towns can't have specialists (IIRC), this is a leader whose ability strongly synergises with itself and a Many-Cities-Few-Towns (MCFT) strategy. The opposite of Augustus' OCMT emphasis.

Yeah, this looks powerful, but I think the choke-point for him is going to end up being gold. It's not cheap to convert towns into cities, from what we know, and Confucius is going to want to get cities up early and often to get the most out of this, since the bonus (apparently) doesn't apply to towns. And as Eagle Pursuit mentions, population growth triggers border expansion, so Confucius is going to want those cities to have room to expand, too.

So you've got a game where you're settling towns as fast as you can, to turn them into cities as fast as you can, and you've got to give those settlements a good amount of space. Meanwhile, you've got neighbors as well, who also want that space, and you can't really afford to be buying units if you want to get those cities up, so you're probably hard-building a good amount of those (and you won't be getting much benefit from the Specialist bonus in the early game either, so you can't rely too much on technological advantage.)

So it's a very solid bonus, to be sure, but you're going to have to work for it.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This is off topic, but the way units are oversized compared to cities, which has always bothered me a little, bothers me a lot more with Civ VII precisely because of how beautiful they have made the cities. E.g. 1:08.

 

[8housesofelixir]

This is off topic, but the way units are oversized compared to cities, which has always bothered me a little, bothers me a lot more with Civ VII precisely because of how beautiful they have made the cities. E.g. 1:08.

I'll just imagine them as train models, which someones have artistically fitting but oversized figures on them.