Is Gaul OP?

I think it is because people think any mine is a culture bomb, but I assume it is just on a resource that limits the effect.
nope it is on any mine.
you can see from 0:28 in the video:
it was "empty" mine but it still caused a culture bomb
 
Well I take back my previous comment and have to go amend the Features Thread and contemplate how amazing that is
 
I'm curious to see how they'll play out.

There's some nice synergies very early where they can pump units to race Oligarchy and go for a neighbour while boosted by having a mini-horde. That said I suspect their lack of speed will mean it'll only be good for at most 1 neighbour on higher difficulties.

The ability to easily rush 1 early neighbour isn't bad by any means, but after that they'd probably want to do a pretty quick transition to development... There they become quite map dependant. They need space and they need hills.
 
Are culture bomb/cheaper tiles even that good of a gimmick by itself, regardless of who gets it?
I've seen people love culture bombs and cheaper tiles ever since I started playing Civ 5, but I've never really understood why.
Yes you (might) get to the attractive tiles earlier, but if you really need a particular tile, buying it the old fashioned way does the trick.
Especially in civ 6 where you don't see the insane population numbers like in civ 5 (tall cities), I don't really get what all that land is supposed to be good for in the first place.

Heck, I plan to do multiplayer with two mates of mine tomorrow, but I was surprised to hear their first reaction to Gaul being "nice, culture bombs for more tiles!".
I mean, out of all the bonuses Gaul get, the culture bomb gets their attention??
 
Are culture bomb/cheaper tiles even that good of a gimmick by itself, regardless of who gets it?
I've seen people love culture bombs and cheaper tiles ever since I started playing Civ 5, but I've never really understood why.
Yes you (might) get to the attractive tiles earlier, but if you really need a particular tile, buying it the old fashioned way does the trick.
Especially in civ 6 where you don't see the insane population numbers like in civ 5 (tall cities), I don't really get what all that land is supposed to be good for in the first place.

Heck, I plan to do multiplayer with two mates of mine tomorrow, but I was surprised to hear their first reaction to Gaul being "nice, culture bombs for more tiles!".
I mean, out of all the bonuses Gaul get, the culture bomb gets their attention??
Probably because it is easiest and most useful culture bomb.
 
Probably because it is easiest and most useful culture bomb.

It can't flip terrain, so that at least puts a small limit on it. But it's one of the few culture bombs not needing a resource to trigger, so especially if you have even moderately hilly terrain, should be able to expand far and never really needing to buy tiles, even if you end up wasting a few builder charges here or there that get replaced later by districts.
 
I’d say that they’re a high A teir civ. A Civ that’s pretty stong but not as powerful as civs like Gran Colombia, Byzantium, Germany, and even Korea.
 
I had an old friend in law school who was from Seoul and a big Civ fan and was pretty adamant that thinking any civ was better than Korea was objectively wrong and that any civ whose design threatened that view was OP. This was during Civ 5 and is only the one person, but these comments definitely make me think of him.
 
I think it's a bit early to pull the trigger on the "Gaul OP alarm". We don't really know until we actually get our hands on the Civ. My first impression is that they're quite strong, but not overpowered by any stretch.

For one, let's start with the Civ ability. Culture bomb mines is probably the best culture bomb in the game, and that's going to be really good. Plus, getting culture on those mines is really strong; I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment that culture is more valuable than science, but I do agree that early culture is harder to come by than science, which makes this ability really good. On top of that, if they settle near lots of hills (which according to Ed's twitter, Gaul has a start bias near mineable resources, so they will) they'll get crazy adjacencies early. However, I think people are downplaying how bad the limitations on this ability will be. For one, you'll be a lot more limited in where you can place your specialty districts, since you can't put it next to the city center, and people forget how the adjacency bonuses from nearby districts stack up over the course of the game.

The unique district seems really strong, but I don't really think they make Germany or the Hansa obsolete. If you've played Germany a significant amount in Civ VI, you'll know that with a little bit of planning, the Hansa is both an insanely powerful and reliable district. With Hansa/Commercial Hubs/Aqueducts stacking, you can get absolutely ludicrous production from the Hansa. The Oppidum has the potential to be better, but that's mostly contingent on where in the tech tree it comes. If the Oppidum actually comes from the civic tree, then that's insane for the Gauls. But their extra adjacencies (while powerful) seem less reliable than the Hansa, and we also don't know if the district loses out on any adjacencies that other IZs have; if they don't get adjacencies from Aqueducts or Dams, then that's pretty rough. But that said, it still seems pretty good; unlocking Apprenticeship is really cool, and the ranged attack--while not a game changer--also seems useful.

The Gaesatae also seem really good, but I don't know about gamebreakingly good. The main thing that strikes me is that Gaul will be the best early game Barb clearer in the roster. There's basically nothing the barbs can do against this unit. I think the First Look also mentioned that they get a bonus for attacking districts? Which if that applies to City Centers (and it should), then Gaul is a dangerous neighbor in the early game. But this unit also is more expensive, and unlike its nearest analog the Eagle Warrior, it doesn't pay for itself in builder returns. Also this unit should fall off more than people give it credit for; bringing in a 30 CS warrior against a 36 CS Swordsman isn't necessarily a winning combination. To me, this unit's presence means that you can just slightly delay Iron Working, not just ignore it entirely.

The Gaesatae may however sting around more thanks to King of the Eburones, since the CS boost applies to both allies & enemies. Now, there should be counterplay to these guys (i.e. ranged attacks), but in the hands of a competent player this could be insane. The culture from building units also seems really relevant; not as good at Alexander's science because that's more relevant for a domination game, but it's still very potent--especially if like I'm wondering the Oppidum is unlocked through the civic tree.

All in all, I think Gaul are really good, but there's enough weird caveats in their design that bring them down to earth a little bit. There's also nothing in here that screams "overpowered" like Gran Colombia's universal +1 movement. And while I think there's a legitimate discussion to be had about power creep, I think there's enough of a distinction between them and Germany to for each Civ to occupy a distinct niche within the same "production Civ" archetype.

Now, if we wanna talk power creep, we can talk about how Byzantium basically invalidates Spain entirely. :crazyeye:
 
Here's a new bit from the Livestream. Gaestedae do not upgrade to Swordsmen. Presumably Musketman instead. So that Medieval era is going to stall out a Gaulish conquering spree.
 
Probably because it is easiest and most useful culture bomb.

I get that, but why care about culture bombs apart from "it's a cute fluff"?
I guess you could technically culture bomb on turn 10 if you wanted to, but what are those extra tiles accomplishing?
I saw someone argue that you could "waste a few builder charges to culture bomb", but why waste a builder charge for more tiles, instead of just buying it outright?

I never really understood the fascination with early land grabbing.
Ain't got the population to work it anyway, if I really need a specific tile I'll buy it, and otherwise the land will be claimed eventually.
This isn't civ 5 where we need every possible tile to put our 40 population to work, after all.

That was my initial impression of the Civ: an early game aggressor, mid-to-late game turtle.
Depends though.
Personally I find that the strength of walls in GS made most domination games rather turtl'y come the medieval era.
And either way, even when doing domination in the medieval era, cavalry is personally my preferred choice to do the job as warrior type units are rather slow for pushes.
And cavalry doesn't suffer from the upgrade gap that is swordsmen, but keeps the unit adjacency bonus.

Still a strong domination civ either way imo.
 
I get that, but why care about culture bombs apart from "it's a cute fluff"?
I guess you could technically culture bomb on turn 10 if you wanted to, but what are those extra tiles accomplishing?
I saw someone argue that you could "waste a few builder charges to culture bomb", but why waste a builder charge for more tiles, instead of just buying it outright?

I never really understood the fascination with early land grabbing.
Ain't got the population to work it anyway, if I really need a specific tile I'll buy it, and otherwise the land will be claimed eventually.
This isn't civ 5 where we need every possible tile to put our 40 population to work, after all.

There is a nice edge to be able to get to that extra land quicker. More likely to have resources there, and more potential locations for either chops or district locations (which for Gaul are essential since it takes them a long time to unlock possible district sites). And yeah, you can buy tiles outright, but if it costs you 65 gold to buy a tile, or 220 gold to buy a builder with 3 charges, every mine early should be able to culture bomb at least 2-3 tiles, never mind also giving you a tile that's useful to work.

But to me, thinking about it some more, the real culture bomb advantage is that you can more easily get out to those 3rd ring tiles, which tend to be more expensive to buy, so that you can potentially have some better flexibility in city settling and not worry about how to gain access to those resources.

But otherwise, it is correct in that sometimes extra tiles don't matter if you can't use them very well. And the fact that mines gain a bonus culture, those 2f/2p/1c grass mines are going to be tiles you're pretty much always going to want to work early anyways, so it doesn't matter as much.
 
I'd say very unlikely to be OP, but fun. I'd agree they look weaker than Byzantium to me.

Germany's hansa was the killer at launch because of overlapping factory spam. That's gone. Early prod from oppodium is nice, but not game breaking - strategic resources and quarries aren't that common. Definitely significantly less and more inconsistent than say Russia will have with work ethic.

I think the no districts in the first circle is going to slow them down a bit. Every time you found a new city you will have to spend money and/or builder charges to be able to build your first district.

The +2 per neighboring unit is great for defensive. It's good for offensive as well, except it's only on all the slow units. Moving all your ranged/melee/anti-cav to the enemy and in position will take time.

Even on say the new 'highlands' map, I'd give the Inca an advantage over gaul.
 
They will probably struggle from some slow starts with respect to expansion. You'll want to beeline the Ancestral Hall with them, as otherwise, getting new cities to place their first district will take way too long and those districts will become really expensive. But early culture is very strong and that should help them rush through the policies and get to political philosophy asap.

The industrial zone is a bit of a mixed bag. It really depends on where it's placed in the tech tree. IZ's kinda suck, and these are probably not going to be an exception, aside from in select locations next to strategics and quarries. If they come early enough to make a big difference in when Apprenticeship gets unlocked (say at Masonry for example), then that could be a huge deal. Masonry is a critical tech for the Pyramids anyways. If it's unlocked at Ironworks, it will be pretty terrible.

The combat bonus from adjacent units is going to be really annoying to deal with in multiplayer. You won't be able to rush them early. On the offense, especially on single player, I'm not sure how much impact it will have. You lose too much movement relying on melee, anti-cav and ranged units. But maybe you can do musket + field cannon timing pushes with Bombard support?
 
It really comes down, in my opinion, #1 to how good mine culture ends up being - imo this will probably (early on) be on the level of trajan’s monuments. Maybe it gets better over time but it’s more of a very nice to have rather than itself Op fuel.
#2 is how well a human can exploit the combat bonus in tandem with the warrior+archers.
The warrior by itself is not that interesting, it’s basically a slow war cart in situations where the +10 comes to play. But if you can reliably carve out +8 bonus from the ability to stack with that, a little gaggle of warriors and archers should be able to seal up any early war. (The archers in particular will get a lot of mileage out of this since they will truly be able to death ball.)

It’s really going to take some play but I suspect outside of a fast rush powered by an early oppidum (for apprenticeship mine boost) a good human will be able to smash a neighbor hard with this. They will fall off a bit as you get into the medieval and other civs catch up with their own apprenticeship, but then it becomes the knight’s game and while humans can still exploit pike+xbow blob, at an MP level that isn’t enough juice. Byzantium would be hitting their crescendo at this moment, for example. There’s no medieval melee so any early rush units will fall off hard, and a weak meat shield for crossbows is asking them to get picked off by knights.
 
Again someone re-edited the said wiki but added the following "강하긴 해도 독특한 개성이 있었거나, 선결조건이 명확했다면 이런 비판은 받지 않았을 것이다.[7] 종교관에서나 붙던 문화+1 산출이나 문화폭탄이라던가, 좀 빡빡한 선결조건이 필요했던 것들이 거의 없다시피하여 사실상 '무조건'의 특성인데다 골만의 독특한 개성도 없어서 이런 결과를 낳은 것이다. 이런 문명들은 '대충 만들었는데 사기이기까지 하다'는 평가를 받으며 당장은 주목받을지 몰라도 재미가 없어 금방 관심에서 멀어진다. 멀리 갈 것 없이 한국 문명 특성이 왜 비판받았는지, 똑같이 초반에 특성이 몰려있는 크리는 왜 재밌다는 평가를 받는지 생각해보면 답이 나온다. 골 문명 특성의 문제점과 정확하게 일치한다."

Translated it read. "even if they are strong if they had clear Prerequisite they would not be receiving this critism. They have plus 1 culture that you can oly see from religions and culture bombs and they have removed difficult presequisite so they have "no limits" as a speciality. They also don't have a ecial trait as a Gaul. These civs receive a jugement of being carelessly made and they are OP. They may receive much attention now but soon they will lose their interest because they are plain and boring. You don't need to look far but look at why Korea civ is received harsh critism and why Cree who also has special bonous earily in the game gets to be called fun and entertaining. They have similar aspect as problems with Gaul"

seriously Korean fans are butt hurt over Gaul for some reason. They act like Gaul is what broke camel's backside in terms of balance issue with civ 6. They were slient when Byzantium gets announced but Gaul is too much? If developers were lazy they could have created Gauls as Huns 2.0 but they didn't. It was said in live stream that they wanted to go against popular view-created by Ceasar himself- that Gauls are nothing more than offensive barbaric tribe so they gave them bonus in culture as well as offensive capabilities. THAT IS NOT LAZY!
WTH? :confused:
 
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