How to Nerf the Shoshone [Brainstorming]
- Thread starter MerchantCo
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I got lucky with my Shosone game. I started with maybe 4-6 flood plain/desert hill/desert resource tiles in my initial ring. I popped desert folklore with my pathfinder pretty fast.
After you stop settling cities, they don't have much of an advantage except for the fast start.
After you stop settling cities, they don't have much of an advantage except for the fast start.
Feyd Rautha
Prince
I like to play with less AI so there is room to expand so I was excited about the Shoshone. I kept having growing pains with the new expansion and had to restart a couple times, but my most recent game is a keeper. I think the running total is four upgrades (I pathfinder spammed), four techs, early religion, two culture, three population, two +60 faith prophet bumps, one map, and a couple gold boosts.
I may not have done an optimal start, but I bought one pathfinder and built two additional. Turn 140, and I'm ahead, but not more than I used to be. Like I said... growing pains...things are harder to be sure.
I may not have done an optimal start, but I bought one pathfinder and built two additional. Turn 140, and I'm ahead, but not more than I used to be. Like I said... growing pains...things are harder to be sure.
bonafide11
Worker
Sure seems like people think every Civ needs to be nerfed at this point. I think people are really overreacting. Most of the Civs people comlpain about being overpowered also have serious weaknesses in their game. The Shoshone have some nice perks at the beginning, but they fade fast.
IAmOzymandias
Warlord
what i'm more puzzled by is the lack of people i've seen complain about zulu. at first glance, at least, his half price melee units seems like a MASSIVE advantage throughout the game. Or Assyria? Forget beakers, just beeline to a tech you know nobody else has (Instant beeline Steel?) focus on production and military and you'll never be behind in tech, until everybody is dead!
SwiftMunkeh
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2013
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- 5
Its already been stated, but sometimes Dev's read threads, so to add to the pile, no nerf! I have started maybe 10 diff games with the Shoshone so far, and 2 out of 10 games I found no ruins. I think at least 2 more games I expanded so fast I crippled myself. And I think out of the remaining 6 games I had maybe 1 that felt amazing. IMO I say give it a month of gameplay before any nerf cries are given merit.
Conversely, there are people who will whinge about the "worthlessness" of any civ that isn't overpowered (e.g. America, Japan, Germany), so I guess it call comes out in the wash.
I've played a few games as Shoshone on Immortal -- it's nice to be able to get a good start from goodie huts, and you're near-guaranteed a quick pantheon.
But it really doesn't do things after that. Quite a few civs outpace the Shoshone once you're not finding huts anymore.
If you don't want to be stuck with an expensive warrior that never upgrades, you need to use a goodie hut per pathfinder to upgrade it. And even then your scout stops being an expendable explorer and becomes important to your army... where you'd get much more exploring with the same cost in scouts. The extra cost of the pathfinder also means you find less huts against higher-level AIs. (takes several turns longer to make). As a result, if you're losing a hut or two from the build time of pathfinders, and a hut or two upgrading pathfinders, you're actually not coming out all that much further ahead by picking your huts.
Certainly the Shoshone are solid - but they aren't dominant in any given era. They don't get a meaningful advantage in their units or cities in terms of combat strength or production or science, etc. There's nothing that is actually superior to the units/buildings everyone else gets - no legions or longbows, burial tombs or bazaars.
The city space thing is solid, but only really good if you go wide instead of tall. Mid-late game unless you're still plunking down cities it doesn't do a lot for you anymore.
But it really doesn't do things after that. Quite a few civs outpace the Shoshone once you're not finding huts anymore.
If you don't want to be stuck with an expensive warrior that never upgrades, you need to use a goodie hut per pathfinder to upgrade it. And even then your scout stops being an expendable explorer and becomes important to your army... where you'd get much more exploring with the same cost in scouts. The extra cost of the pathfinder also means you find less huts against higher-level AIs. (takes several turns longer to make). As a result, if you're losing a hut or two from the build time of pathfinders, and a hut or two upgrading pathfinders, you're actually not coming out all that much further ahead by picking your huts.
Certainly the Shoshone are solid - but they aren't dominant in any given era. They don't get a meaningful advantage in their units or cities in terms of combat strength or production or science, etc. There's nothing that is actually superior to the units/buildings everyone else gets - no legions or longbows, burial tombs or bazaars.
The city space thing is solid, but only really good if you go wide instead of tall. Mid-late game unless you're still plunking down cities it doesn't do a lot for you anymore.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2011
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- 6,181
The only real nerf the Shoshone need is less tiles from their UA to make it a bit more comparable with the US. There are a few more nerfs I would put in too, nerfing Assyrian Siege Tower bonuses [Its as if people didn't learn from the constant complaints about the Huns] a little, increase Impi or barracks costs or at least improve Germany a little, etc
Gliese 581
Your average civ junkie
I haven't really tried the Shoshone yet but I don't get what all the hype is about. The pathfinder while nice costs 45 hammers compared to the 25 hammers of a scout. Many times, at least on deity, those 20 extra hammers if you go with pathfinder first build compared to a scout first build are going to cost you one if not several ruins. Their horse UU seems pretty meh. I agree that their UA is very strong but I have to say compared to other civs UA it really doesn't stand out as OP to me, I'm not sure Shoshone is even a top 10 civ overall. right now I doubt they are.
This.
Pathfinder UU is good... for a little while, but it's one of the steepest cost increases of all UU's compared to its base unit. (nearly double) - meaning you're paying quite a bit for a warrior with a scout's upgrade path(-) / movement bonus (+).
Polynesia, by comparison, can make 4 scouts for just over the price of 2 pathfinders and gather up all the goodie huts on islands that noone else has access to - frequently getting double or more the huts you'd find as Shoshone on a continents map and expanding their trading and CS options significantly by meeting everyone. And that's without going into how good Moai are now for cultural victory.
El Caballerion
King
I feel the same way. They will probably be the most fun civ for me for the first 100 or so turns because I LOVE exploring... but after that, they get to be a bit tough. Just because you have all these extra tiles doesn't mean anything if you don't have to research the technologies in order to work them (bananas on jungle requires 2 techs, making it soooo hard to obtain for such a long time).
In my current game, I'm stuck on an island with no other civs or city-states. This allowed me to grab 6 huts, but now everything is going super slow. But, their UA can allow them to either warmonger early, found a religion early, get some social policies early, etc. I like them bc they are versatile, but they are not at all OP. Now... Spain next to the Great Barrier Reef is OP, IMO...
Dissonance
Warlord
The only thing that does not make sense to me is why the Pathfinder shares strength with the warrior - given their existant ability, the extra buff feels unnecessary.
The fact that they upgrade straight to Composite Archers, that sounds like a bug or an oversight to me. (To be honest, I never liked scouts upgrading into archers... but that's me)
So with normalized strength, and no magical composite archers, the unit is fine. Nothing else about the nation strikes me as overpowered.
The fact that they upgrade straight to Composite Archers, that sounds like a bug or an oversight to me. (To be honest, I never liked scouts upgrading into archers... but that's me)
So with normalized strength, and no magical composite archers, the unit is fine. Nothing else about the nation strikes me as overpowered.
- Joined
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- 16,937
Ironically enough, the increased strength and upgrade to Comp. Bows go hand in hand. They have increased strength because they are the Shoshone's starting unit. You can't defend squat at high difficulty levels with weak scout strength. And because they are stronger, it would be silly for them to upgrade to an archer which has less combat strength than the Pathfinder. So they just upgrade to the next thing above an archer, the Comp Bow.
bonafide11
Worker
A scout with a warrior's strength is hardly that much of an extra buff. It'll just help survive against barbarians a little longer, but it's not like you would want to build an army with them or attack anyone with them. Warriors are extremely weak units. There is no need to reduce their strength.
Dissonance
Warlord
That makes sense of the situation. And sounds like the problems and compounded by them being a starting unit. Well, make them more like a regular scout and make Shoshone not start with them.
Warriors may be weak, but a warrior-equivalent unit with scout's movement and +50% defense/+10 healing (Survivalism 2, easy to get) makes for units that are really hard to dislodge in the early game. Scout units have lower strength for a reason, and I still hold that this fix would help Shoshone balance immensely.
EDIT: More brainstorming! What if the Pathfinder was simply a unique Melee unit, similar to the Maori warriors. Warrior replacement, no terrain movement cost, native tongue promotion. Upgrades along melee pathway.
bonafide11
Worker
Or they could just leave it the way it is, which is perfectly fine. Out of all the powerful UUs in the game, a scout with a warrior's strength is hardly gamebreaking.
That's a good way to get them "stolen" by the AI
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