Indonesia

[InkAxis]

Bold. I am pretty sure he is unplayable on deity without absolutely perfect conditions, like coffee monopoly, weak and distant neighbors, many good natural wonders close by and ruins on. Starts needs to align perfectly for making him decent enough to survive.

Do other people find Indonesia this bad? I've never heard it but if so we should change some things.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I've just started a playthrough with Indonesia and I'm actually enjoying them. I'm playing on King so take it with a grain of salt.

Indonesia actually works well with Progress as it really helps deal with the issues. Need happiness? Here are three luxuries you can get! Lacking in gold due to roads? More luxuries (all providing some source of gold) that can help fill up your treasury! I haven't needed to stop growth in any of my Cities one bit. I'm even fighting a decent war but that's due to two Kris Swordsman getting Relentless!

I'll share my final thoughts once I finish the playthrough but here are my thoughts so far. Note that these might not apply to higher difficulties! Indonesia doesn't have the most exciting kit. Kris Swordsman can be either amazing or absolutely terrible! Candi is actually really solid if you go for WLTKD synergy as it gives +20% Culture and Faith in the City. Cater your religion around that along with the MoC and WLTKD might be a huge steroid to your Cities. The extra luxuries give you options with pantheons while that extra happiness lets you go wide either through peacefully expansion or aggressive conquest. I went Progress but I can see how Authority can work pretty well due to the gold from the tiles and happiness to keep your conquest going.

Is Indonesia absolutely terrible? I don't think so! They don't need the perfect conditions and I'm sure some Deity players can use the extra happiness and yields on otherwise boring tiles to get away with things they couldn't before. Are they broken? Not even close!

 

[Grassland Farm]

I've just started a playthrough with Indonesia and I'm actually enjoying them. I'm playing on King so take it with a grain of salt.

Indonesia actually works well with Progress as it really helps deal with the issues. Need happiness? Here are three luxuries you can get! Lacking in gold due to roads? More luxuries (all providing some source of gold) that can help fill up your treasury! I haven't needed to stop growth in any of my Cities one bit. I'm even fighting a decent war but that's due to two Kris Swordsman getting Relentless!

I'll share my final thoughts once I finish the playthrough but here are my thoughts so far. Note that these might not apply to higher difficulties! Indonesia doesn't have the most exciting kit. Kris Swordsman can be either amazing or absolutely terrible! Candi is actually really solid if you go for WLTKD synergy as it gives +20% Culture and Faith in the City. Cater your religion around that along with the MoC and WLTKD might be a huge steroid to your Cities. The extra luxuries give you options with pantheons while that extra happiness lets you go wide either through peacefully expansion or aggressive conquest. I went Progress but I can see how Authority can work pretty well due to the gold from the tiles and happiness to keep your conquest going.

Is Indonesia absolutely terrible? I don't think so! They don't need the perfect conditions and I'm sure some Deity players can use the extra happiness and yields on otherwise boring tiles to get away with things they couldn't before. Are they broken? Not even close!

Same, I actually don't mind them. The only issue I see is they lack the Naval flavor they should have. There's more underwhelming civs than Indonesia IMO.

 

[pineappledan]

Indonesia's great ability is being able to just settle any patch of dirt and make it a passable location. That doesn't make them particularly flashy, but it's certainly useful. They have fast, secure luxuries that help them expand faster while managing happiness easily, and can be traded away for more bonuses. They can focus exclusively on defensiveness for settling locations, and the rest falls into place. The AI is much less generous on trade deals these days, which does hurt Indonesia a bit.

The Candi is weird. The 2nd resource placement and WLTKD trigger have natural synergies with the UA, so that’s fine. It’s a temple building, so I get the / yield mix from a thematic standpoint, but it’s a bit wonky. The upside is that 20% is HUGE. That’s an extremely powerful bonus by itself. The downside is that while Indonesia can expand fast and has some natural pantheon synergies, it is by no means is safe for a religion. the candi therefore gives a ton of faith potential to a civ that has good odds of not benefiting much from it. Even moving candi forward to be a temple replacement or something wouldn’t help much. But it’s fine, because the 20% could more than stand on its own. The one synergy you need to consider with the Candi is that % modifiers round down, so all cities need at least 10faith per turn to get at least 2 from the modifier. Shrine/boosted temple/Candi gives 2+5+2=7, so you need to come up with 3faith in all cities from pantheon/followers/mendicancy… somewhere, to get to 10, and that’s something to consider while building your religion.

Reworking Indonesia is not the least bit necessary, IMO. They have plenty of uses out of their 3 unique luxuries. I think the way VP pushes them more militaristic with the free resource on conquest is pretty cool; you can raze/resettle/Candi for 3 resources around a city. I like the idea of pushing the monopoly bonuses just a bit further over the top so that Indonesia has even more reason for conquest, and controlling monopolies outside his 3 free ones. That, combined with a few tweaks to the very inconsistent Mystic Blade promos, and Indonesia should be in much better form.

Nice 'scalpel' changes that reorient the civ just a touch more expansionist and make the UU a little more consistent is all that's needed. Giving a resource boost to cloves/nutmeg/pepper is gravy, it feels appropriate just for the sake of symmetry with other resources, but it's not the main thing holding the civ back.

 

[Gizmoman]

I think Enginseer nailed the main problem with the civ (or at least why it's so unappealing to players), the RNG. You have a barely passable UU that's held back by RNG, some promotions are awful and even the good ones aren't that amazing, cleaning up the promotions a bit could help that. Then probably the bigger issue, the RNG involved in the UA. I've heard a few people suggest you can just re-roll the game until you get the correct luxury on your first settle but that always just felt incredibly boring to me and I would assume to other people as well. Either making all the monopoly bonuses +tileyield or none of them +tileyield would most likely make the entire process less obnoxious.

People could probably see beyond those issues if it wasn't for the entire civ just feeling slightly undertuned and boring.

 

[Stalker0]

Do other people find Indonesia this bad? I've never heard it but if so we should change some things.

When this got brought up in the "bottom 3 designed civs".... the main concern was around their plainness rather than their power.

 

[CrazyG]

He's not unplayable at all. Just needs a little bit more spice (ironically).

 

[Gizmoman]

Still think the UA should automatically claim the tile that spice spawns on and instantly construct a plantation.

 

[InkAxis]

@Gazebo
There's quite a few proposals in this thread so I'm going to recap some of them:

Cloves:
+2
+3 when improved
+6 global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Pepper:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Nutmeg:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

The randomness of the first luxury is mitigated, it also helps defining your first moves (cloves - peaceful wide, pepper - tall, nutmeg - aggressive expansion). No more science, faith fits the civ better imo, also is synergic with the candi multipliers. Less frontloaded boni, better scaling into late game. Overall it looks more elegant to me

I think most people agreed on changing this to be the new luxury yields, though the nutmeg monopoly would stay the same (+2 production).

For the UA, giving all monopolies a boost is something I've implemented in the code, and would do well to showcase the new monopoly system while also blending well and being a simple change.

Stalker also suggested a bigger change, allowing Indonesia to share monopolies and get them at lower percentages.

The discussion about the Kris is in the more recent comments, either removing the worst 2 promotions or spreading the bonuses.

 

[pineappledan]

I know there has been some discussion about making all the resource monopoly bonuses all the same kind (either all global % or tile yields), but I kinda want to re-litigate exactly why I’m personally against that, and see what people think.

So first off, people have said they don’t like the randomness, that having + tile yield monopoly is a stronger start than the other 2 possibilities, and so they want to stop people from rerolling. For a bonus that is determined on turn 1… rerolling doesn’t seem like the worst thing, there’s a button specifically for that, and it’s their prerogative if they want to do that. I would like to hear a stronger defense for why your first monopoly being a bonus to tiles is a serious balance concern, rather than an acceptable level of variance. If it truly is the strongest type of monopoly, does that bring up a wider concern for monopoly bonuses as a whole, or is this strictly an issue with Indonesia having 1 or 2 tiles to improve for a faster monopoly?

The other matter is I think Indonesia loses something by having all the same kind of monopoly bonus, because it serves as a nice demonstration civ for the new monopoly features introduced in VP. A diversity of bonuses gives new players, or just 1st time Indonesia players, a more comprehensive introduction to the system, and I like that. And since you’re more or less going to get all 3 monopolies in your cities eventually, maybe within only a few turns of each other, it comes out in the wash, regardless of whether 1 resource is a bit more of a standout initially.

that’s my opinion anyways, I’m interested in hearing a more robust defense on why the 3 resources should be homogenized.

 

[stii]

Resources being different values seems fine to me. There are a million things in your start that make a huge difference to how good it is.

 

[InkAxis]

I didn't hear anyone saying they should all be the same. And after all, is +2 H per tile really that different from +10% H? If it is then that would be an issue with monopolies, not Indonesia.

 

[pineappledan]

The thinking is that Indonesia monopolies are so fast you would get 1 super-tile as soon as calendar unlocks. If nutmeg on grassland was kept as a +2 monopoly, but the UA bonus increased that to 4, combine with the 1 on tile, 2 on terrain, and 1 on resource, then that’s 352, which is nearly a free Town. So get why that could feel unacceptably swingy. Might feel better if the pepper with a monopoly on tiles was the bonus on tiles monopoly.

 

[InkAxis]

The thinking is that Indonesia monopolies are so fast you would get 1 super-tile as soon as calendar unlocks. If nutmeg on grassland was kept as a +2 monopoly, but the UA bonus increased that to 4, combine with the 1 on tile, 2 on terrain, and 1 on resource, then that’s 352, which is nearly a free Town. So get why that could feel unacceptably swingy. Might feel better if the pepper with a monopoly on tiles was the bonus on tiles monopoly.

Yup, that works. If we want also 1 Gold can be uniformly removed from the resource/improvement each for additional balance. The resources could get nerfed a bit from that proposal as there is a new UA buff.

 

[Stalker0]

While I like my "byzantium esque" monopoly concept, I can get behind the "extra monopoly benefit UA" if people like that better. Just looking at the proposal I feel that nutmeg is a little too good, and cloves a little weak. I would switch their bonuses a bit.

Cloves:
+2
+1 +1 when improved
+6 global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Nutmeg:
+1 +1
+3 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

I will say with 9 extra happiness, Indonesia should be a good power expander....that makes a BIG difference in the early game as far as unhappiness.

Under this model my ideal lux order would be Pepper first (early faith + power growth), then Cloves (big happiness to absorb pepper's growth and my expansion), and then nutmeg (best late scaler monopoly).

I don't think the order is SO important with this scenario that getting a different lux would be a reset, they all have their advantages. Probably getting pepper last would be the most "feel bad" just because the faith loses a lot of its advantage and you don't need the food as much as you do off the bat.

 

[Gazebo]

For some reason this thread wasn't showing me all the posts, not sure why. I had to use a separate browser to see all of them. Weird. Apparently it was affecting other threads too.

Anyways, I don't think Indonesia needs even more Monopoly stuff on their UA, as they're already getting 3 monopolies on top of the near-guaranteed initial monopoly.

G

 

[Gizmoman]

Anyways, I don't think Indonesia needs even more Monopoly stuff on their UA, as they're already getting 3 monopolies on top of the near-guaranteed initial monopoly.

Yeah never really understood that part either. If you think they are just undertuned, you could just buff the actual spice monopolies rather than blanket-buffing all indonesian monopolies.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I'm happy with most of the proposed changes. I much prefer a different type of monopoly bonus form each of their luxury resources. I know most people don't like unpredictability but Indonesia has always had variety as part of their flavour and to me that's a good thing. Variety is the spice of life after all? It means you can replay a civ and not do the same thing every single time. What important is just that each bonus is useful and worthwhile.

The one thing I would argue against is removing the GG-like ability of heroism. I know warring civs get a lot of GGs already, but IMO Indonesia is a fairly neutral civ IMO - their biggest boost is economic rather than military. They play wide well, but do just as well taking with Progress as Authority. I'd say if Heroism feels weak from a warring perspective, just give it some kind of generic buff on top of that ability, like +5% combat strength.Or the +xp bonus that was proposed. Regardless, it would be sad to loose a psuedo-GG ability for playing Indonesia with a defensive flavour rather than offense because in those situations it's actually one of the stronger promotions.

 

[pineappledan]

Cloves:
+2
+3 when improved
+6 global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Pepper:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Nutmeg:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

I would like to note that the lack of faith on Nutmeg has cultural/historic basis, so good job on that one, @randomnub. Cloves and Pepper have both been historically used in folk medicine, but nutmeg has no medicinal effects, and even though nutmeg has psychoactive effects when taking large amounts, the side-effects are so bad that using nutmeg as a mind-altering drug has never caught on.

If we wanted to give Indonesia a faith edge, I would probably add faith to Cloves when improved, in addition to Pepper. I don't think pepper by itself could give enough push:

Cloves:
+2
+1 +1 when improved
+6 global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Pepper:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+3 per tile global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

Nutmeg:
+1 +1
+1 +1 when improved
+10% global monopoly
+1 +1 with Candi/Garden

 

[pineappledan]

Candi now +25% culture/Faith during WLTKD; -2 urbanization

Kris
Heroism - now gives GG aura and 10 damage reduction
Enemy Defection - now gives 50% chance to heal 10 HP and can use enemy Roads

Cloves Monopoly now +20% Faith, +3 Happy
Pepper Monopoly now +10% Culture, +3 Happy
Nutmeg Monopoly now +10% Production, +3 Happy

Holy modifiers Batman!
10%, 10%, 20%
10%, 35% and 45% during WLTKD
Something to note regarding the 20%faith monopoly is that modifiers all round down, so you need 5faith in all cities to get that extra 1. The only 3 pantheons that I can think of that give a guaranteed 5 in all cities is Goddess of Springtime (2 Shrine + 2Herbalist, +1 from guaranteed plantation resource), God of the Sun (2 Shrine + 3 Granary), Ancestor Worship (2Shrine + 2 Council + 1/5). It looks like this change heavily favours Springtime, and biases Indonesia heavily towards per-turn faith pantheons in general. Goddess of Festivals gives its yields per unique luxury on empire, so I don't know how that interacts, but I doubt it works in Indonesia's favor anymore.

This increase to 25% on Candi makes me think, because I don't know what the right number is, but this one is really high.
Brazil gets +25% and -50% Needs from WLTKD on its UA
China only gets 10% from its UA and 10% from its UB

So is China too low relative to other civs, or is Indonesia too high, or is there no problem?

Flat 10 damage reduction is really, really big. Combined with the 17CS base, plus 15% for the free aura, and free Cover promotion, I don't know what damage source is hitting a Kris for more than 5-10 damage after reductions for a full era. This guy is gonna tank everything.

One thing is for sure, I want to take the the global monopoly modifiers (10%10%20%), pile on all the WLTKD bonuses from Candi(25%), Theocratic Rule (15%), Halicarnassus (10%), Circus Maximus (10%), Synagogues (10%), Fealty (15%), Protectionism (10%) and see how high I can push this.
I can get a combined 35%, 70%, 60%, 20%, 35%, 45% in the Capital with a WLTKD with that, before other modifiers.