Is Pan-Asian (Daoming) too OP?

[CaptainPatch]

Daoming's initial Trait is that she can have EVERY city she builds be able to construct nearly any Wonder in just one turn. As a player using Pan-Asian as my faction, I spawn cities ASAP. (And incidentally, accelerate population growth that also accelerates Research.) In my Marathon game on a Massive planet with 7 AI opponents I'm on @ Turn 750. Thus far I have built all but two of the completed Wonders. (I believe there are only about 5-10 Wonders left to be built.) As a result, my VP total score is @1200 points ahead of the #2 faction. Also incidentally, I have accrued all of the benefits associated with all of those Wonders. In short, I'm waaaayyyy ahead of every other faction in the game. Primarily because of the advantage given by having all those Wonders. Also, having built so many Wonders, it caused the opponents' Respect to be high enough that I could get Diplomatic stances of Cooperative = no one is declaring war on me. With less need to build up defensive/offensive armies, I could focus instead of Production and Science.

I don't know what it's like to play against Pan-Asian, but I imagine that unless Daoming is pointedly stooooopid. she would have an easy time of it walking away with any game where Pan-Asian is present. I also imagine that the smart strategy playing against Pan-Asian is to eliminate Pan-Asian FIRST if at all possible.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It is very strong but it also gives PAC a unique play style which I think is more interesting than giving each sponsor a bland bonus.

 

[Olodune]

It looks great on paper. But the tech web is structured in a way that makes it hard to pick up strong early wonders, I think. I don't think PAC is close to the power level of Polystralia or, surprisingly, ARC.

 

[Ryika]

Pan-Asia is about as "op" as Prosperity was in the base game. It's the easy option to get a "strong" bonus if you haven't optimized your strategy (yet), but otherwise gets eclipsed by other options.

After all, the bonus doesn't even do that much in the tech web - if you WANT a wonder you beeline it and are pretty much guaranteed to get it. Meanwhile the other wonders on other ends of the tech web will be taken by AIs before you can get there, so the whole "Monopolize all the wonders"-thing doesn't really work on higher levels.

 

[Idleray]

the answer is no.

I can guarantee you that I can construct all wonders before turn 750 on marathon. Heck I can probably do it before turn 600.

 

[MAMoob]

To me they are one of the average sponsors. Not too good, not too bad. Problem is, earlygame wonders are kinda weak and lategame wonders you can grab faster with a civ that has better tech speed. I had decent results with an early gene vault, free workers for your new cities save a few turns, and the extra diplomacy allows you to improve your traits and grab extra agreements (extra diplomatic capital you get for the wonders is probably the better part of many of them).

I find ARC, Al Falah, African Union, and Polystralia to be better "economy" sponsors, while the new water start civs seem to be pretty good at domination.

 

[Alkaid]

Surprisingly, no. The mere idea of the ability giving wonders for free really does sound like it would be OP, but the combination of wonders' lacking usefulness in BE and their placement on the tech web(most on outer ring techs you barely or never get to in a standard game) makes the ability not as good as it sounds on paper, even though it is still quite good.

Even with the ability you wouldn't bother to research the techs for most of the outer ring wonders, so gobbling up every wonder and going nuts is neither practical or efficient. (again, in a standard game) It mainly helps you get early wonders like Panopticon, Gene Vault, Ecto Pod, etc. without wasting turns to build, as even on Apollo the AI almost never beats you to those if you make an active effort to get them. I think the most significant benefit you can get from it in a normal game is with the wonders that aren't off the typical tech paths and are nice to have but usually take a long time to hard build. Stuff like Promethean, Crawler, etc.

Also their +1/2/3 diplo unique trait is pretty pointless. You probably won't even or will just barely make back the diplo it costs to upgrade the trait from the it before the game ends, even with a handful of wonders.

They're still very good (thankfully), but not OP. I'd say Polystralia, Al Falah, African Union(with specialist focus), and maybe ARC or Chungsu(both with agent spam) are above them in terms of general strength. (With Polystralia actually being OP)

 

[Polycrates]

Also their +1/2/3 diplo unique trait is pretty pointless. You probably won't even or will just barely make back the diplo it costs to upgrade the trait from the it before the game ends, even with a handful of wonders.

It's completely pointless, but in a way I actually think of this as a sort of second bonus. They get all the good stuff up-front without paying diplo capital to get the full effect, and can use the diplo points they would otherwise invest here for other traits/agreements.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Since wonders are weak, the game ends early and tech detours are bad: No, PAC is not OP.
I'd even argue they are weaker than the old PAC - more worker speed would fit better into the current pace of the game.

 

[Amrunril]

PAC's bonus is clearly strong and exciting. I wouldn't call it OP at the moment, for the reasons others have said, but it's hard to know for sure because there's such a huge variance in sponsor power at the moment that its hard to get a good sense of what a balanced ability should look like. At one end of the spectrum, you have the ARC, which can combine its unique ability with the right personality trait (and a poorly balanced covert ops mechanic) to have each of its spies stealing a quarter of a tech every 4-5 turns. At the other end, you have Brasilia, which may as well not have a unique ability. I would say that PAC is fine as is for now (except that the diplomatic capital bonus is kind of awkward), but I have no idea whether I'll feel the same way in a patch or two once the more obvious balance issues are out of the picture.

I do really like the feeling of getting a free wonder, so if the ability does eventually need to be nerfed, I'd rather see it change to something like a free wonder in your first 2/3/4 cities, +0/5/10 diplomatic capital from wonders than change to an Egypt style production boost.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I would just like a simple "Wonders cost 30%" production, +1/2/3 all yields (not just diplomatic capital) from each Wonder"

 

[CaptainPatch]

You probably won't even or will just barely make back the diplo it costs to upgrade the trait from the it before the game ends, even with a handful of wonders.

Of the four Trait areas, the LAST one that I upgraded to Level 3 was the one Daoming starts with. That one, the one-turn Wonders is available at Level 1 and advancing doesn't do anything to ehnace that quality. (I can't even remember what the secondary element that does improve is.)

Aside from the occasional Diplo deal, the only thing I really used DPs for was for upgrade Diplo status to Cooperative with EVERYBODY ASAP. I didn't use DPs to buy anything until after Turn 300. (By which time I was siting on >20,000 DPs.) Having that big of surplus made jumpstarting new cities awesome. Old Earth Relic, Clinic, Recycler, Thorium Reactor, and Cloning Vats all available from a city's first turn. First build is Trade Depot and would take about 5-8 turns.

I'll probably have to play PAC a few more times. But thus far, it seems unbeatable. (At least on Gemini.)

 

[Roxlimn]

Everyone's unbeatable on Gemini.

 

[bhavv]

The only thing I don't like about it is that I don't want AI PAC in any games I play as anyone other than PAC.

Is it possible to choose the AIs in your game?

 

[Amrunril]

The only thing I don't like about it is that I don't want AI PAC in any games I play as anyone other than PAC.

Is it possible to choose the AIs in your game?

It's possible to choose AI civs in the advanced set up, but you have to choose which ones you want, not which ones you want to exclude.

 

[CaptainPatch]

The only thing I don't like about it is that I don't want AI PAC in any games I play as anyone other than PAC.

Is it possible to choose the AIs in your game?

PAC versus PAC? That would be interesting.
You can choose the opposing AI factions in the Advanced Setup. Work your way through the Basic Setup - faction you will be playing, planet (map) size, game speed, etc. -- but before starting the game, go to the upper right corner of the UI to select the Advanced Setup button. That screen is mostly self-explanatory.

If you are going to play the PAC faction while also having PAC as an AI opponent, you can Edit your faction name and leader name. That should cut down on the confusion.

 

[bhavv]

Erm, I didn't mean that I wanted PAC AI while playing as PAC lol.

But thanks. I meant that I felt forced to pick PAC because I didn't want the AI to get immediate wonders.

 

[Kutuzov]

Erm, I didn't mean that I wanted PAC AI while playing as PAC lol.

But thanks. I meant that I felt forced to pick PAC because I didn't want the AI to get immediate wonders.

In practice, on Gemini anyway, it doesn't happen that you'll lose out to the AI PAC all that often as you will likely research the tech long enough before the AI anyway. But when it does happen, boy do you HATE the PAC in your game. That's what brings the game to life for me, when I'm emotionally, or intellectually, engaged.

 

[bhavv]

Even if you can like it, its still completely unbalanced to auto lose a wonder to this trait, on top of the AIs research and production bonuses on higher difficulties.

Why not literally just give them Civ IV's industrious bonus - 50% faster wonder construction, and the increased diplo point gain on top?

 

[Eji1700]

Even if you can like it, its still completely unbalanced to auto lose a wonder to this trait, on top of the AIs research and production bonuses on higher difficulties.

Why not literally just give them Civ IV's industrious bonus - 50% faster wonder construction, and the increased diplo point gain on top?

It's not even remotely unbalanced right now simply becuase the wonders often aren't worth it and you can generally still beat them too it if you really want them. As far as I can tell the PAC AI doesn't even shoot for wonders and takes the same meth driven haphazard path through the tech tree they all do.