First Look: Macedon with Alex the Great

[CivLuvah]

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jus' sayin'.

at this point i am genuinely not sure whether the dev team are full-on racists or not.

Unintentional biases are not racist per se.

Oh, and if you're going to pull the ad hominem card and complain about me, I'm not even white nor from Europe.

I won't talk about this topic again in this thread after this post.

 

[Katakanja]

IMO this debate is, at best, premature until the day comes when we have the complete Civ VI roster in presumably like 2+ years. Yes we can argue as much as we like about the order in which new civs are being introduced to the game, but to accuse anyone of racism or bias is ridiculous until we know definitively who has made the cut and who hasn't. If, as many have speculated, Firaxis wants to release geographically themed expansions this time around they are going to need to keep a good mix of well-known/returning veteran civs and obscure newcomers to fill up the 8+ civ slots they would need to make that possible - personally for me, that is sufficient cause to give them the benefit of the doubt for the decisions they are making at the moment in regards to DLC civs.

Once we get to the point where they announce the first expansion and we see what kind of direction they are taking for the game's future, then it might be time to revisit this debate.

 

[God of Kings]

China could end up with multiple civs with some representing various states from either the Warring States Period or from the Three Kingdoms period, while China proper would have numerous leaders.

Likewise, the Mughals could be a separate civ from India.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It's kinda rough on China and India; but given for most of their existence they were each pretty much one political entity (especially when compared to Europe); it's very hard to split off any sub group to be their own Civ. Then Macedon potentially sets a precedent there....

Well that's not true for India, it was multiple political entities for most of its history.... its just been unified in Recent history.

 

[Magil]

That was also the case in Civ IV. It's simply a problem with the concept of multiple leaders in a Civ game - but for whatever reason there was clamour to have what amounted in Civ IV to a pointless cosmetic feature (the leader attributes weren't pointless, but having them as 'Leader 2' rather than 'Civ 35' was to most intents and purposes, as uniques weren't as significant a feature of Civ IV as the traits).

What brought it together in Civ IV was the "unrestricted leader" option which let you have any leader lead any Civ, which led to some power combos. Now you may still call that a "pointless cosmetic feature", as your definition for that seems rather broad, but I really liked the option to mix-and-match traits and Civ-uniques.

If anything, I'd say Civ VI's failing in this area is that it doesn't seem to be designed around this at all. You have Civs like the Kongo or Russia who have weak leaders (but strong Civ traits), and the Kongo in particular would be extremely (probably overwhelmingly) powerful with a leader that actually had a good Leader ability.

 

[Siptah]

I just rewatched the video and looked how much science you get from the unique building.
You can actually see it: Alexander produces 19 science per turn and need 7 more turns to finish apprenticeship. This tech has a cost of 275 science. So they have roughly researched half of it (less than 133 more to go) before the boost comes in. After the boost, it takes three more rounds, so less than 57 more to go. The unit they built is a Hypaspist, that may cost the same as the swordsman (90 production). So it seems plausible that you get the production cost of the unit you build in science. If this works with buying units as well, it would be a super strong use of gold.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I just rewatched the video and looked how much science you get from the unique building.
You can actually see it: Alexander produces 19 science per turn and need 7 more turns to finish apprenticeship. This tech has a cost of 275 science. So they have roughly researched half of it (less than 133 more to go) before the boost comes in. After the boost, it takes three more rounds, so less than 57 more to go. The unit they built is a Hypaspist, that may cost the same as the swordsman (90 production). So it seems plausible that you get the production cost of the unit you build in science. If this works with buying units as well, it would be a super strong use of gold.

It says that you get additional bonuses for certain units. I assume that mean UUs, so generic units may not generate as much.

 

[Cerilis]

I just rewatched the video and looked how much science you get from the unique building.
You can actually see it: Alexander produces 19 science per turn and need 7 more turns to finish apprenticeship. This tech has a cost of 275 science. So they have roughly researched half of it (less than 133 more to go) before the boost comes in. After the boost, it takes three more rounds, so less than 57 more to go. The unit they built is a Hypaspist, that may cost the same as the swordsman (90 production). So it seems plausible that you get the production cost of the unit you build in science. If this works with buying units as well, it would be a super strong use of gold.

Heh, imagine that + Carthage suzerain.

 

[Cerilis]

It says that you get additional bonuses for certain units. I assume that mean UUs, so generic units may not generate as much.

Or maybe only melee units or something.

 

[Siptah]

It says that you get additional bonuses for certain units. I assume that mean UUs, so generic units may not generate as much.

But even then... with a 50% production card in place for the Hypaspist, you will complete one every few turns and the bonus is worth a few turns of science in the earlier stages (almost 5 in the video). Seems a viable strategy to completely neglect campuses and churn out units instead for a longer time. What you do with all those units is another question, however. I'm glad that Alexander does get a kind of science bonus this way.

Heh, imagine that + Carthage suzerain.

An incredible synergy! Especially if you can get 6 envoys there fast and produce units way faster.

 

[Felis Renidens]

What do you do? you send them with a little ram to knock on the doors of foreign cities asking them if they have heard about the good king Alexander. They didn't? Well, they better start learning because he's their king now...

 

[Siptah]

What do you do? you send them with a little ram to knock on the doors of foreign cities asking them if they have heard about the good king Alexander. They didn't? Well, they better start learning because he's their king now...

You don't want to finish every game with Macedon in the medieval era or earlier, don't you?

 

[Wingednosering]

I am similarly irritated by the over-representation of the region and the neglect of African and Pre-Columbian civs. Having said that, the gameplay for Alexander looks fantastic (although severely overpowered at first glance).

I posted this in another thread, but I'm hoping they're releasing civs region by region, Europe being the first because some of the devs are supposedly huge european history nerds. I get the vibe from this whole thing that Ed Beach just really wanted an amazing Alexander scenario with Scythia, Persia, Macedon, Sparta (Gorgo) and Athens (Pericles). If he wants to go for his personal favourites, that's fine. 3/21 civs being essentially the same region is a bit ridiculous, but whatever. Hopefully they will shift focus and give a slew of Pre-Columbian, African and then Asian civilizations for future DLC/expansions.

 

[Magil]

You don't want to finish every game with Macedon in the medieval era or earlier, don't you?

Every single Macedon/Alexander ability is about helping you wage war or rewarding you for conquest. I don't see any reason to ever stop the warmongering with this Civ.

The only reason games should take longer is if the enemy is on another continent and you cannot immediately attack them.

 

[Zaarin]

They spoke different languages (though Alex and Phillip both spoke Greek too)

That statement is premature. Macedonian may have been a Hellenic language closely related to Greek (cf. English and Scots) or it may have been a dialect of Greek. It's too poorly attested to say one way or the other, and we're unlikely to find new material to shed light on the question. Athenians protesting that Macedonians weren't Greek is about as relevant as l'Académie français protesting that québécois isn't French.

 

[Felis Renidens]

You don't want to finish every game with Macedon in the medieval era or earlier, don't you?

Well, I can try to get them to space... but I guess that even with Alex I won't conquer much more than usual - which usually is that at most my entire landmass and usually just those that annoy me. Problem is when I have decided to build something other than units district will be costly. So what can I do? Borrow them from the next-door neighbor? Oops... domination victory again...

 

[Japper007]

But even then... with a 50% production card in place for the Hypaspist, you will complete one every few turns and the bonus is worth a few turns of science in the earlier stages (almost 5 in the video). Seems a viable strategy to completely neglect campuses and churn out units instead for a longer time. What you do with all those units is another question, however. I'm glad that Alexander does get a kind of science bonus this way.
.

I'm glad to see someone else noticed how absurdly powerful this bonus could be (if indeed it works like this), I can already imagine getting to space by building tanks and artillery lol! If it scales based on unit strenght you could bee-line Chemistry and get an absurd boost of off AT-crews. It's like reverse Gorgo and while getting a better yield to boot!

 

[Felis Renidens]

I'm glad to see someone else noticed how absurdly powerful this bonus could be (if indeed it works like this), I can already imagine getting to space by building tanks and artillery lol! If it scales based on unit strenght you could bee-line Chemistry and get an absurd boost of off AT-crews. It's like reverse Gorgo and while getting a better yield to boot!

Well, you will get the tech to get to space, but it won't give you the infrastructure. If you are not careful you may find it very costly and time-consuming to build. If you are careful enough and balance it well it may take you to space.

 

[Katakanja]

Well, you will get the tech to get to space, but it won't give you the infrastructure. If you are not careful you may find it very costly and time-consuming to build. If you are careful enough and balance it well it may take you to space.

Just seize the infrastructure of a neighbour. I'm sure they wont mind, its for a good cause after all - all hail glorious Spacedon!

 

[Japper007]

Well, you will get the tech to get to space, but it won't give you the infrastructure. If you are not careful you may find it very costly and time-consuming to build. If you are careful enough and balance it well it may take you to space.

eh by the endgame the cap and core cities are mostly churning out tech projects anyways, if units end up giving a better RoI it could be a significant advantage. Infrastructure should already be well in place when the end game units roll around