How to do... Polynesia?

[Vodun]

The question is, how to play as Polynesian civ with all addons/changes that mod gives us?

On Vanilla pre-mod games (BNW etc.) I've played one or two victorious games with them.
But now I find it hard to be advanced, competetive and just with hope that in late game I'll return to glory. Had at least 4 picks with Polynesia (I set to a random civ) and didn't have any victory. Having religion is hard enough, not to mention lead in culture or science.

I find it especially sad because when Polynesia is my enemy it's usually the main source of all world wonders, they just love to build them and they are not far behind in other fields either.

So, do you have any advices how to play them? I play at chieftain/warlord level (in Vanilla I played almost always on Prince).

 

[Funak]

Polynesia is suffering from rather severe map-dependency, you don't necessarily need to play on an islandmap (although that clearly is preferred) but you need a map with a large amount of uneven coast, uneven means you're getting more out of the unique improvement. On top of that you don't want any of your luxuries spawning on the coast, because that means loss of yields.

So after you've restarted the game 50 times to get a halfdecent start you kinda start off the game as usual, researching some techs to try and find bonus-resources to work, picking up whatever tech is necessary for improving your luxuries, somewhere along the line you should probably also pick up the wheel so your workers can start building moai.
You usually want to start your build-order by going Scout->Shrine->Scout->Monument->Worker->Settler hopefully your scouts' ability to cross ocean tiles will help you get some ancient ruins going. Best possible ruin to get is Culture, because that allows you to get to the second progress policy faster with gives you a free worker. Any gold gained from ruins can be used to rush the Shrine or the monument (even if you only have 2 or so turns left on them the hammer overflow is still nice, you can also save gold to rush the shrine in your second city (the key to getting a religion is rushing a lot of shrines in a lot of cities, and also building a lot of workers to assist whatever pantheon you went for).
You want to settle your cities coastally, or at least close enough to the coast that they can work Moai, the trick here is getting as many Moai as you can on a straight line, that means you want to build moai whenever you can build a moai, on top of bonus-resources, on top of strategic resources, on top of luxury resources (which does not connect them, which is why you don't want your luxuries on the coast)

Anyways your goal is to get as many moai up as possible and then research masonry, which turns them into fairly decent production-tiles, at this point you should be ahead of your enemies in culture and production which should give you a good shot at going for whatever victory condition you want.

The unique unit is fairly pointless so you probably don't want to use it as a timing to declare war, and the UA effect that increases yields from natural wonders is way situational so it probably isn't worth relying on. Still, if you see a decent natural wonder within reasonable distance feel free to grab it.


Anyways the Key here is Culture, Production and getting a religion up

 

[tu_79]

Polynesians have two selling points: Embark allowed since turn 1, and moais.
Embark means you can go and settle nearby coast before anyone else, so those small continents are for you alone.
Moais are a good source of early culture, but you need to build them adjacent to make them work. That means that if you settle on the coast, you are losing at least 2 adjacent coast tiles, so settling 1 tile away from the coast will make moais yield more, but doing that in another continent might prevent you from connecting to capital.

Moais help you to defend, too. So keep near the coasts, but only settle in the coast tile occasionally (for ships and connections), and go for culture.

 

[Vodun]

Thanks for the tips, I see the Polynesia is a bit harder than your usual Aztec, Arabia, Polish or Korea civs. Now I must wait for random civ selection to pick those Moais builders.

 

[hokath]

I'm playing Polynesia atm and it is quite interesting. I'm playing on small oval due to laptop, which is basically garbage for them, but I have got two natural wonders really early and that helped a huge amount. The UU is, like the Berserker, seriously powerful.

 

[Funak]

I'm playing Polynesia atm and it is quite interesting. I'm playing on small oval due to laptop, which is basically garbage for them, but I have got two natural wonders really early and that helped a huge amount. The UU is, like the Berserker, seriously powerful.

I tend to play small ovals a lot, and it is actually deceptively good for Polynesia due to weird inland-seas forming, sure they won't have much use of their UA at all but their moais are still working full time.

The UU to me just seems like a lot worse version of a mohawk or a Legionnaire, but you're of course welcome to your own opinion in the matter.

 

[hokath]

weird inland-seas forming

Yeah I don't have any on my game, but I can imagine this would be excellent.

 

[Funak]

Yeah I don't have any on my game, but I can imagine this would be excellent.

It doesn't happen every Oval, but it is fairly common so I made an assumption, sorry about that.