How broken would this be?

[TheDanish]

Any financial leader, paired with Portugal (Feitoria UB) on an Archipelago map, building the Colossus.

Unless my math skills have failed me spectacularly, that'd be 5 commerce per water tile. And with the Portuguese UU, you wouldn't necessarily need Astronomy to cross the ocean, and the Colossus wouldn't go obsolete.

Has anyone tried this? I might roll up a map with these settings...

 

[Nilmerf]

Willem van Orange is better already. He's financial, and one hammer in the water from the Dike is better than one commerce in the water. The ultimate tile is a coastal fish with Moai Statues, the Colossus, and a Dike. In a golden age.

 

[coanda]

You might not need Astro. to cross the ocean, but you'd definitely want it anyways relatively soon. This is why the Portuguese UU isn't as strong as it appears in general, actually. There's basically three reasons you want to cross oceans. First is to grab more land; second is for trade routes with foreign civs, and third is for tech trading with other civs.

But without Astronomy, any cities you found or conquer in distant lands will not be able to trade with your main empire. This means that they have very low happy cap and health and very high upkeep, and any resources they grab aren't available to your core cities, so they're usually useless or worse.

Similarly, without Astronomy, you can't get those nice intercontinental trade routes to kickstart your economy.

So basically all carracks provide is foreign tech trading... but you can get that with an ordinary caravel anyways! And yes, there are a few, rare other uses for carracks. It's just that they're so rare or minor that they aren't really worth considering.

Add in the nice benefits of Astronomy beyond that - a +25% science improvement and unlocking better naval units (which can often be very important on water maps such as Archipelago), and the fact that you have to get it for Physics anyways... I wouldn't consider FIN + Portugal + water map that overpowered.

Now Willem is overpowered on Archipelago. A universal suffrage Willem rush-buying dikes can give you an absurd production advantage which is very easy to turn into outright victory in any way you want.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

FIN + colossus is pretty good if you have a lot of coast tiles.

Feitoria is an awful UB, in fact it is one of the very worst value-over-base UBs in the entire game. You'd be better off with just about anything. Take an ikhanda, any courthouse UB, any cap booster, and even some culture UBs over this trash.

Delaying observatories and potential overseas resource trades/trade routes makes this combo even weaker.

 

[xenex]

You can already do this, just go to custom game and choose unrestricted leaders.

Isn't Hannibal basically perfect for "coastal economy" he's already financial and he has the cothon, which your gonna want in any city with seafood anyways, its okay with 1 seafood and great with 2.Then you take The Great Lighthouse and your set.
Trade routes are easier to take advantage of then working coastal tiles.You can also get bonuses on your trade routes with Harbor and ToA.

Sure it would still lose some of its power when you get to astronomy, but any power you lose from losing Collosus should be easily recovered from the new intercontinental trade routes.And GLH doesn't have to obsolete since corporations isn't a tech you really HAVE to get.

 

[TiglathPileser]

You can already do this, just go to custom game and choose unrestricted leaders.

Isn't Hannibal basically perfect for "coastal economy" he's already financial and he has the cothon, which your gonna want in any city with seafood anyways, its okay with 1 seafood and great with 2.Then you take The Great Lighthouse and your set.
Trade routes are easier to take advantage of then working coastal tiles.You can also get bonuses on your trade routes with Harbor and ToA.

Sure it would still lose some of its power when you get to astronomy, but any power you lose from losing Collosus should be easily recovered from the new intercontinental trade routes.And GLH doesn't have to obsolete since corporations isn't a tech you really HAVE to get.

Yup, played exactly this GLH strategy with Hannibal last week or so and creamed the AI on epic speed snaky continents. Met 5 civs on other continents early on to give insane amounts of trade, bulbed Civil Service for Bureaucracy with the first GM and managed to grab the Collosus too - silly amounts of commerce early on. Rexing then only helps even more as each new city has 4 (usually intercontinental) trade routes from the start!.

 

[TheDanish]

Hm, points taken. I did just play a Willem game and won pretty handily with nine cities over AIs who had 15+, so I guess Willem is at base the better leader.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can win most difficulties with 9 well-managed cities regardless of leader.

 

[Higher Game]

Feitoria is an awful UB, in fact it is one of the very worst value-over-base UBs in the entire game. You'd be better off with just about anything. Take an ikhanda, any courthouse UB, any cap booster, and even some culture UBs over this trash.

The vanilla customs house brings 6-8 raw commerce with free market and corporation, and the feitoria can reasonably add 2-3 more (roughly in line with the seowon and stock exchange, value-over-base wise). It's good, great even if you're pumping 100% science, and if you've got it with bureaucracy or Oxford. It's only a poor building for coastal peninsulas that just don't have enough commerce to make it worthwhile; those sites with a single seafood and very little land are for workshops.

The terrace is better, and maybe a madrassa at times, but you're taking things too far to put the stele or pavilion over it. The mausoleum and apothecary are questionable choices too.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Willem van Orange is better already. He's financial, and one hammer in the water from the Dike is better than one commerce in the water. The ultimate tile is a coastal fish with Moai Statues, the Colossus, and a Dike. In a golden age.

On paper, Willem's a very good leader. But the most important phases of the game tend to occur before Steel.

 

[cabert]

On paper, Willem's a very good leader. But the most important phases of the game tend to occur before Steel.

Wilhelm is already financial and creative (2 very strong traits!) before steel,
and his UB comes with steam power...

This is one leader with which I can beat deity.
And there isn't a big stock of those, so he is strong.
Better than Julius? here I am not so sure.