Is Lautaro anyone's Civ of choice?

[row2infinity]

I've been trying to narrow down on my fav civ lately, and thinking it's Monty. I started a game as Monty on Immortal standard continents, and having a great time. Really focusing on a science victory. It's probably the renaissance era at this point, I've literally got some sort of alliance with every civ except for Lautaro. I've liberated a city state from him, but haven't done much else. He's annoyed by me, but whatever. I'm in a golden age, and he declares a surprise war on me. Ok this is going to be kind of annoying, but I can handle him. I've got a +6 Aztec luxury bonus, I've got a veteran army, lots of units, some walls in my exterior cities. He starts rolling through and one by one my units are getting decimated. I take a look at the numbers in the combat screen, and not only does he get his +10 golden age bonus against me, but he also has a +10 bonus for Crusade. Jesus....

I've honestly never played Lautaro, but he consistently gives me the most trouble at higher difficulties over any other civ. Interested to hear if anyone is a big Lautaro supporter, and if you do anything special with him.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The Mapuche aren't my all time favorite, but they are my favorite from R&F.

My main strategy is to settle around Natural Wonders, mountains, and coasts in order to maximize Chemamull spam.

During the mid-game, I make pillage wars against civs in Golden Ages. Make them spend their Golden Ages rebuilding districts.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

They're a sneaky good Religious Victory civ too

 

[row2infinity]

During the mid-game, I make pillage wars against civs in Golden Ages. Make them spend their Golden Ages rebuilding districts.

That's a great idea. How is your experience with warmongering penalties with them? I usually don't like warring after the Medieval age unless I'm liberating.

 

[Disgustipated]

I messed around with him a little in the Mapuche civ of the week thread. But I never got around to doing war stuff with him, I was focusing on cultural stuff. If I do play him again, I'll focus on war stuff.

The main problem is you can't rely on nearby neighbors getting into a golden age when you want it. You mention warmongering penalties, and that's always going to be an issue if you use him this way. The AI won't be in a golden age until classical era at best. I'm not sure if you would have time to roll over more than 1 civ in that era (except maybe on marathon speed), especially when battling loyalty problems. Like you, I don't like warring after medieval, actually for me I don't like warring after classical unless I'm just going all out. You take such a huge penalty if you completely wipe out a civ. You could avoid doing that of course, but often it's just easier to do so.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I messed around with him a little in the Mapuche civ of the week thread. But I never got around to doing war stuff with him, I was focusing on cultural stuff. If I do play him again, I'll focus on war stuff.

The main problem is you can't rely on nearby neighbors getting into a golden age when you want it. You mention warmongering penalties, and that's always going to be an issue if you use him this way. The AI won't be in a golden age until classical era at best. I'm not sure if you would have time to roll over more than 1 civ in that era (except maybe on marathon speed), especially when battling loyalty problems. Like you, I don't like warring after medieval, actually for me I don't like warring after classical unless I'm just going all out. You take such a huge penalty if you completely wipe out a civ. You could avoid doing that of course, but often it's just easier to do so.

In my game with them I flipped a handful of border cities neutral with the civ benefit and then took them. City Laundering=no warmonger penalty

Also you can do just an all out pillaging war, not taking any cities and not getting that penalty.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

That's a great idea. How is your experience with warmongering penalties with them? I usually don't like warring after the Medieval age unless I'm liberating.

Use your best cyrus belli, of course. Since you aren't taking cities (except by flipping, occassionally), the warmonger penalty fades away before long.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I once rolled a tundra start as Mapuche. I managed to get Temple of Artemis and Terracotta Army then steamrolled all that fertile grassland clay occupied by my Khmer neighbour. It was an easy game from there on out.

Toqui + Barracks allows them to gain exp level 2 faster than most other civs.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Their mountain start (campus) bias and +10 golden age combat bonus make them a fairly compelling choice. With Toqui + stable + armory you can take the middle of the tech tree and go gunpowder, chop out +75% experience Malon Raiders for the heavy hitting, then head straight to ballistics. That gets you a potentially lethal combination of Malon raiders, field cannon and +10 golden age bonus much sooner than you would have the same kind of numbers with a standard civ. A "normal" civ would have to research the bottom of the tech tree to military science, then build or buy a military academy where the Mapuche don't. On smaller maps with really fast finishing times the +XP modifier from Toqui doesn't matter so much, but on large maps it becomes increasingly relevant. The drawback is the golden age bonus is situational which can make Malon Raiders less than stellar performers (especially away from their +5 combat bonus for being within 4 tiles of home territory). Certainly in the top half of the civs I enjoy playing.

I suppose they are 1/2 decent with cultural victory as well .

 

[Disgustipated]

Do they really have a mountain bias? I just started a game with them. And my capital and 2 nearby (nearest ones) cities have no mountains. I wanted to play them warlike, but Pedro was my nearest and only neighbor, and he went into a normal age. I'm on a smallish continent with only Pedro. It's like the game is trolling me. I attacked Pedro anyways. But I'm only utilizing a little bit of my governor ability.

 

[Victoria]

Do they really have a mountain bias?

Yup

I do like the appeal to culture start and only for a builder charge it is pretty good. The +10 is useful but limited. So I think its a pretty good middle civ, not OP and a culture start + mountains is useful.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Do they really have a mountain bias? I just started a game with them. And my capital and 2 nearby (nearest ones) cities have no mountains. I wanted to play them warlike, but Pedro was my nearest and only neighbor, and he went into a normal age. I'm on a smallish continent with only Pedro. It's like the game is trolling me. I attacked Pedro anyways. But I'm only utilizing a little bit of my governor ability.

LOL.

From the games I've played with them I'd say yes, the have the mountain bias. From the games I've played I can't rule out the HAL9000 trolling you either (because it sure does feel like that sometimes). I think they also have a Mount Roraima start bias, but am not sure that's even a thing.

 

[Leathaface]

Culture victory is my favourite victory type so I think i'll give The Mapuche another go in the future. The Chemamull sounds like it could be potent early game and really advance your culture.

I played once as Lautaro before but I started in a lot of jungle. I forgot how jungle really lowers your appeal so i'll be restarting next time if the same happens.

 

[Archon_Wing]

IMO the more "ifs" a civ needs, the weaker they are. But I think Mapuche should be capable of fast wins.

The other thing is to pillage against civs in a Dark Age, not a golden age, because they can't recover as fast.

 

[Victoria]

Culture victory is my favourite victory type so I think i'll give The Mapuche another go in the future

Lautro T107 CV on Immortal here - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/6otm39-after-action.632447/#post-15146121

 

[Disgustipated]

I admit this is my first Lautaro game without mountains. Still strange. Yes I renamed my cities. The Mapuche cities names are severely lacking. I can't tell which city is which. Instead, I just rename my capital with my home city, and roughly name my other cities in relative direction of my home city (yes I know Moapa is more North than East, there just doesn't happen to be any towns East of my city that are nearby, desert and lake occupy that spot).

Spoiler :

I only enabled score and domination victory. There is no way out but pain for the AI's. I raised my difficulty level I normally play at, but it's still pretty easy. Yet I still have yet to face an AI who is in a golden age. Yeah this ability kind of sucks.

and yes that is Elizabeth in the game. I am playing with mods. I just eliminated Napolean.

 

[row2infinity]

So I played my first game with Lautaro last night. Super fun. Went kinda crazy, so prob gonna restart another tonight. Played Immortal, standard, continents. Started next to Scotland to the east with a mountain range and some city states as a buffer to the south. Started a war against Scotland in the classical age and took the majority of his cities. Era changed, Scythia is to the south of me now, and she's in a golden age. Time to make peace with Scotland, and go after her. It was ridiculous. Literally I could have sat my armies outside of her walled cities forever, the damage she was inflicting on my crossbowman and swordsman barely cracked -10 per turn. Took a number of her cities, starting to have some loyalty problems, but continued for the fun of it. Era now changes to the renaissance, and I'm obviously overextending myself (amenities are becoming a problem), but I have 13 cities. I decide to head west now toward the Khan. He's always a tough opponent. At this point he's now in a golden age, but he has Keshigs. He managed to little away at my original army (I neglected rebuilding in my stupor to steamroll), but I manage to take his capital with 2 musketeers and a crossbowman. Between a few keshigs, one or 2 crossbowmen, and walls, the amount of damage he was inflicting was unbelievably small. I was stunned how powerful veteran Mapuche units are against golden age civs. Wow. Super fun civ. Now I just have to restart a new game and have a little bit more restraint/actually build my economy some haha

 

[SammyKhalifa]

So I played my first game with Lautaro last night. Super fun. Went kinda crazy, so prob gonna restart another tonight. Played Immortal, standard, continents. Started next to Scotland to the east with a mountain range and some city states as a buffer to the south. Started a war against Scotland in the classical age and took the majority of his cities. Era changed, Scythia is to the south of me now, and she's in a golden age. Time to make peace with Scotland, and go after her. It was ridiculous. Literally I could have sat my armies outside of her walled cities forever, the damage she was inflicting on my crossbowman and swordsman barely cracked -10 per turn. Took a number of her cities, starting to have some loyalty problems, but continued for the fun of it. Era now changes to the renaissance, and I'm obviously overextending myself (amenities are becoming a problem), but I have 13 cities. I decide to head west now toward the Khan. He's always a tough opponent. At this point he's now in a golden age, but he has Keshigs. He managed to little away at my original army (I neglected rebuilding in my stupor to steamroll), but I manage to take his capital with 2 musketeers and a crossbowman. Between a few keshigs, one or 2 crossbowmen, and walls, the amount of damage he was inflicting was unbelievably small. I was stunned how powerful veteran Mapuche units are against golden age civs. Wow. Super fun civ. Now I just have to restart a new game and have a little bit more restraint/actually build my economy some haha

It's obvious I guess, but if you want to settle into a culture game work eventually to the Eiffel Tower. It can mean many many culture for the Mapuche

 

[iammaxhailme]

Two of my favorite things to have in civ are natural parks and unique tile imrpovements, and they are likely to get lots of both due to the mountain start bias. So I like them. I wouldn't say top 5 though. I rarely focus on offensive wars, and they seem to have quite a bit of focus onto that

 

[Disgustipated]

Finished my all out war Mapuche game. His abilities really didn't come into play all that much. Though the increased promotions I think did. I played marathon speed, and promotions are harder to come by on marathon, but this screenshot shows one of my 2 level 4 field cannons. I only had 2 level 4 units in the end. I can't be sure, but I think this field cannon came from a city with a governor. I think I only battled 2 civs that were in a golden age. Problem is when I'm dominating the world as I did, other civs have a harder time getting a golden age. Playing Marathon speed didn't help either, I was at the tail end of the Renaissance age when the game finished. It was a fun enough game I suppose, but without any other unique mechanics, I'm unlikely to go this way again.

This is with mods, but only new civilizations/leaders, gold resource mod, and I believe 2 natural wonder mods (neither one was in this game). Difficulty is Emperor. Yes the AI has a catapult on Emperor difficulty, sigh. I should have went Immortal difficulty.

Spoiler :