[R&F] General strategy for Lautaro of Mapuche, foiler of golden ages

[megabearsfan]

Got another strategy guide out. This time it is for Rise & Fall's Lautaro of Mapuche. In summary:

Mapuche seems geared (to me) to be a military and/or culture force that specializes in punishing players who fall into Dark Ages (or who overreach in their expansion) , and who can act to keep Golden Age civs in check. It's too bad there isn't an anti-golden age casus beli that you can play against civs who declare Golden Age wars.

Using the Swift Hawk ability, Lautaro can potentially reduce a city's loyalty to zero, forcing it to flip, then either pressure that city to flip to him, or conquer it without warmonger penalty.

I found that there's a significant caveat to the Swift Hawk ability: when making ranged attacks, both the attacking unit and the defending unit must be within the territory of the city in order for the ability to trigger. This means that you either have to move your ranged units into the territory of the city, or you have to make sure that you soften up enemy units with ranged strikes from outside the city's borders, then finish them off with melee units. Air units must also either be deployed within the borders of the enemy city, or must be launched from an airbase or carrier that is within the city's territory. Here's the relevant thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...val-ranged-or-air-units.634936/#post-15190749

Mapuche can also stifle an opponent's Golden Age by taking advantage of a +10 combat strength bonus. This bonus does not scale based on eras, so it's a much more potent advantage earlier in the game. Later in the game, the Malon Raiders can also be used to cripple an opponent's economy, especially if they build a lot along the borders.

Culturally, the Mapuche are also a threat, assuming they have lots of breathtaking tiles on which to build Chemamull. Having an early unique improvements means it's very easy to get a classical or medieval golden age. You can maybe even deliberately delay on building them so that you can trigger a classical dark age, then use Chemamull and farm barbarians to get a medieval Heroic Age.

Since they are improvements (rather than districts or buildings) the Chemamull can be replaced with National Parks or Seaside Resorts later in the game, so feel free to spam them as much as you can afford to do. Chemamull will automatically generate tourism after Flight is researched, so you don't have to replace them if you don't want to. Earth Goddess is a good pantheon to take if you want some extra faith from these tiles.

I also recommend using a mod (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1442424451) in order to keep track of which of your units have the experience boosts from being trained in a city with a governor, since Civ VI's U.I. is ... not particularly good at conveying such information (to be polite).

The full strategy can be read on my blog:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2018/08/07/Civilization-VI-strategy-Lautaro-of-Mapuche.aspx

As always, I welcome community feedback. Any good strategies that I missed?

 

[slowcar]

+10 combat strength bonus. This bonus does not scale based on eras, so it's a much more potent advantage earlier in the game.

+10 combat strength is as powerful in late game as in early game.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Slowcar is right about that, and +10 is huge. If your units are otherwise equal you'll be much stronger even at Deity. I enjoy the Chemamull for the early culture. It can be huge if you have a couple good locations. I hadn't thought much about the ramifications of their ability to take loyalty from Civs in Dark Ages. Have you had much luck flipping cities this way?

 

[megabearsfan]

Slowcar is right about that, and +10 is huge. If your units are otherwise equal you'll be much stronger even at Deity.

It was not my intent to imply that the +10 is "bad" late in the game. Simply that the bonus is less significant as the game progresses. +10 added to a 20 strength warrior is a 50% bonus and is devastating, but +10 added to a 70 strength infantry is only like a 14% bonus. Both are very useful, and Civ VI is scaled such that smaller differences in combat strength make a much bigger difference than in Civ V. It's always good, but it's better earlier in the game.

I enjoy the Chemamull for the early culture. It can be huge if you have a couple good locations. I hadn't thought much about the ramifications of their ability to take loyalty from Civs in Dark Ages. Have you had much luck flipping cities this way?

In the two test games that I played while writing the strategy, I was able to get at least one or two cities in this manner in each game. It works even if the target civ is not in a dark age. At -20 Loyalty for each enemy unit killed, you only need to kill 5 units to bring a city from 100 loyalty to 0. This is something that also might be less effective later in the game, as your opponents will likely be grouping more of their units into corps and armies, so there will be less cannon fodder for you to kill.

 

[King_Course]

It was not my intent to imply that the +10 is "bad" late in the game. Simply that the bonus is less significant as the game progresses. +10 added to a 20 strength warrior is a 50% bonus and is devastating, but +10 added to a 70 strength infantry is only like a 14% bonus. Both are very useful, and Civ VI is scaled such that smaller differences in combat strength make a much bigger difference than in Civ V. It's always good, but it's better earlier in the game.

Yes but that not how it works. As 10 strength difference between 2 units at 100 and 110, will have the same effect as 2 units with strength 10 and 20. The game decides outcome based on the difference in strength.

Here is a link to a Reddit discussion about it, it was what I could find from a quick search: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/5df2tw/how_does_attack_calculation_exactly_work_in_civ_vi/

 

[Browd]

See also this stickied thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hans-lemurson-figures-out-the-combat-formula.606147/

 

[megabearsfan]

Interesting. Thanks for the correction. I had been playing Civ VI all this time, and I never realized that was how combat worked. I had never paid very close attention to it. I just assumed it worked similarly to Civ V, which (if I recall correctly) was based on a comparison of the total strength of each unit. I will update the guide accordingly.