Kris Swordsman -- I'm not really a"WTH!!" kinda guy, but if I was...

[vanzlmalc]

I don't really get the point of the OP.

You got a start where you can't benefit from UA and UB and one bad promotion in ONE game, we all get random bad stuff. The magic of civ is it's randomness and ways you can deal with different situations.

If the goal is to discuss KS then your start has nothing to with it.

I myself don't like KS for various reasons and i doubt I'll ever build one but that doesn't mean they're bad it just means i don't like them.

 

[Alziel]

Just a thought but if you roll a bad Kris Swordsman why not just gift it to a city state, particularly if the CS is at war when the influence yield would be greater? You get the iron back that way and get at least some return on the time and resources invested.

 

[Thibaulthc]

-if you have one of the to bad promotions, you still may reload, and try to attack from another location and at another time; it does change the unique promotion.
-Candis don't need rivers (anymore?, since patch?)
may be very powerful with 3 or 4 different religions in your city (up to +10 faith)

 

[householder]

-if you have one of the to bad promotions, you still may reload, and try to attack from another location and at another time; it does change the unique promotion.

If you are going to do that, you might as well save yourself the trouble and just use the mod which removes the two bad promotions. The mod is in the Steam Workshop. It is called "No Bad Mystic Blade." I use it in every game I play, even though I do not play Indonesia. It seems a reasonable correction to a flawed UU.

 

[Navelgazer]

I started up an Indonesia game inspired by this thread. I went for Warlord difficulty simply because I have no idea what one is supposed to do with this civ, as much as it fascinates me. Seriously, it feels like every aspect of it is working against itself and each other.

A garden UB which gives faith based on other civs religions. An iron-based UU which requires massive spamming to see it's potential. In a civ whose UA only really shines in an archipelago map. So you've gotta settle early, near iron, on separate islands, so that you can spam Kris, but long before you've got compass in order to hook up your cities, and hold off on steel so that you don't obsolete your spamming, because this all seems to be built for a domination victory, except for that UB which requires global religions and the UA which is half-designed for trade.

I'm trying it again, because I feel like when I crack it, I will love this civ, but right now it feels like it was designed by a developer with an odd and very specific playstyle and we're just in a forensic science experiment trying to figure out what that style is, exactly.

 

[Syailendra]

I'm trying it again, because I feel like when I crack it, I will love this civ, but right now it feels like it was designed by a developer with an odd and very specific playstyle and we're just in a forensic science experiment trying to figure out what that style is, exactly.

actually the civ is not designed at all, the def reads a massive request on this forum for an indo civ. They also make the civs according to some suggestion in 'civ wanted' thread. Such an easy job for them...
If you really want to do forensic, do them on that 'civ/leaders wanted' thread at the ideas n suggestion section.

 

[Thibaulthc]

thanks for the mod hint Householder

I'm currently playing my first game with Indonesia on Immortal/Huge/Big Islands map

it's not easy and I'm stil not sure of my goals, the map is clearly not good for the Kriss, but I'm taking good advantage of the 3 special luxuries (12 happiness and about 21 gold extra) and the candis (8 faith in the cities with 3 different religions)

I made as many kriss as possible with my allies' iron and upgrade them as soon as they have their special promotions. Some are terrific. Like Immortal (+20HP and +30% in defense)

it's gonna be hard and I might lose but that's why I love this game

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Wow. This is really the lotto-players civ. You need islands, you need rivers, you need iron, and then you need to roll good abilities.

Candi does not need a river, it is an incredible UB. It can be built in ANY city, river or not, and it gives bonuses to you if you DON'T found a religion.

Indonesia is an awesome civ if you play it right.

I agree the Kris swordsman is sort of meh, but it just doesn't matter. The UB and UA work so well in combination that Indonesia is just an awesome civ to play.

In all my games, Indonesia is a wonder spamming war monger. Yeah. A wonder spamming war monger, thanks to that Candi and the UA.

Here is the Indonesia game plan I usually follow:

1. Treat Indonesia as a "one city challenge" for the first half of the game.
2. Initial build: scout, scout, granary, library, buy a shrine as soon as 250 gold, and steal a worker
3. Go tradition, beeline to the extra food in capital, then get aristocracy
4. Beeline henge, oracle, and then national college then build the candi and the national epic
5. Found a religion but DO NOT SPREAD IT. Get feed the world and then defender of the faith. For a pantheon pick what suits the capital prioritizing food/growth/faith
6. Try for one of the religious wonder like hagia sophia or borobudur then build all the other national wonders especially the grand temple (yes grand temple) and heroic epic, also ironworks, circus maximus is great, east india company if you are getting trade routes, etc, as well as the guilds
7. Beeline education and get universities up and prioritize oxford

So what's going to happen here? Jakarta is going to become a truly massive city full of a zillion specialists. You are going to spam great people, and settle them. You are going to have a religion and you are going to be pumping out a decent amount of faith. But you are NOT going to be spreading that religion -- you are HOPING that other civs will spread as many religions as possible to Jakarta, to get even bigger bonuses out of that Candi. You are going to be the happiest civ on the planet and you are going to go through golden age after golden age. You're going to have lots of cash for buying buildings, and if necessary an even bigger army, as well as eventually settlers, and then obviously later in the game bribing CS.

So what are you doing with all that faith? Spewing out military units with Defender of the Faith until industiralization, and then buying even more great engineers and great scientists. Meanwhile the capital is constantly working on buildings, wonders where you can get them, otherwise just upgrading and upgrading and upgrading into a massive powerhouse.

Buy some settlers after astronomy and settle advantageous spice islands, you won't suffer ANY happiness penalties while you expand out, because you get free happy resources every time you settle a city, which is AWESOME. These cities will start with a lot of free buildings thanks to your advanced culture and you will have tons of cash to upgrade them rapidly.

I love playing Indonesia and I think it is massively underrated.

 

[whyidie]

I started up an Indonesia game inspired by this thread. I went for Warlord difficulty simply because I have no idea what one is supposed to do with this civ, as much as it fascinates me. Seriously, it feels like every aspect of it is working against itself and each other.

A garden UB which gives faith based on other civs religions. An iron-based UU which requires massive spamming to see it's potential. In a civ whose UA only really shines in an archipelago map. So you've gotta settle early, near iron, on separate islands, so that you can spam Kris, but long before you've got compass in order to hook up your cities, and hold off on steel so that you don't obsolete your spamming, because this all seems to be built for a domination victory, except for that UB which requires global religions and the UA which is half-designed for trade.

I'm trying it again, because I feel like when I crack it, I will love this civ, but right now it feels like it was designed by a developer with an odd and very specific playstyle and we're just in a forensic science experiment trying to figure out what that style is, exactly.

A noble cause. Prior to BNW I was stuck on Polynesia, trying to figure out how it meshed together. Good luck!

In all my games, Indonesia is a wonder spamming war monger. Yeah. A wonder spamming war monger, thanks to that Candi and the UA.

I'm not seeing the uniqueness here. No production bonuses and Candi gives 2 faith for each religion. Lets say you get 5 in your cap, thats 10 + the extra 2 from Candi for a total of 12 extra religion. Isn't this gameplan just as easily followed with Celts/Ethiopia/practically any other civ that can make up for a 12 faith deficit ?

Especially if you have to wait to use the spice islands UA, it seems like you can't really capitalize on the UA. Having a single city into the renaissance will mean extra happiness so you can just as easily execute on this plan with any other civ.

I thought Indonesia might follow the opposite template and go early expansion. Haven't given them a roll yet, but looking forward to it.

 

[Syailendra]

indonesia strength is trade induced cultural influence (wow, thats a mouthful). Play archipelago map, spread your cities thin, get collosus, grow jakarta, trade hard to get lots of gold and faith, buy gWAMs with faith, cultural victory.
I found them strong at archie maps, as they should, but i love playing land maps by a lot. I am indonesian, and i have to admit that my own civ is one of the worst to play at pangaea.

 

[wobuffet]

Sure enough, it turns out to be a big pangea (so no bonus luxes), I get no river (so no candi in the cap), and have to scramble to grab two iron.

Little islands count as new continents.
Candi does not require a river or lake.

 

[rexman07]

Compare this to Magic: the Gathering design. Different cards are designed to appeal to different segments of the Magic player base. In fact, there are "random" cards like coin-flip cards or Capricious Efreet (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=376276). Some players don't like these cards -- they don't have to play with them. Some players LOVE those cards.

If you don't like Indonesia's random UU, you have dozens of other civs to choose from.

But if you're a player who gets excited by the gamble every time a Kris Swordsman fights, then you have one civ that will give you that experience!

It's kind of like a "glass 42/43rds full" vs. "glass 1/43rd empty" thing.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

You need islands, you need rivers, you need iron, and then you need to roll good abilities.

Actually, rivers are not necessary, as Candi can be built in any city. But yes, you do need water maps, or else the UA is useless. But there are other civs which need particulr starts: Morocco--bad without desert (Kasbah), Arabia somewhat (oil), Spain needs the wonders, Byzantium must found a religion, Japan needs fishing boats/atolls, Ottomans need water, Russia needs iron/horses, Incas are better off in the mountains, while Celts/Iroquois in the forest, Brazil in the jungle, Aztecs near lakes, Dutch near marsh, French near luxury. All in all, many civs depend on special location/religion rush.

Borrowing from another thread (kudos to Karmah), this:

Game design anti-patterns

Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough'. Let me give you an example: Let's say Kayle's targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We'd have to make it a LOT stronger to make it 'good enough' because you could not rely upon it... and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability -- they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere's shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him.


So you have an UU that has, on a random roll, either a very powerful speciality or a crippling disability. That's a sorry excuse for interesting design if you ask me.

Yeah, Zileas (Tom Caldwell) has a really good design philosophy, and so far League of Legends has made a lot of steps to reduce the randomness in the game. I think the only random stat left is crit, but it works as a percentage, so if you got 75% crit, then you can assume you will crit 3 times out of 4.

While randomness does add the unexpected factor, I think in general it is bad design for skilled players. When you know the game's ins and outs and plan your strategy around your knowledge and skill and calculation, the randomness generally ruins your plans. A skilled Civ player knows which promotions he or she wants and how to achieve them. This is especially true on higher difficulty levels and where players challenge themselves for faster win times. Similarly, League's competitive scene introduction makes it so that the game has to be less about random chance and more about strategy and skill. This is why something like a triple-casting Ogre Mage from DoTA is unbalanced competitively, but probably fun to play as (not against though).

But I think that in the grand scheme of things and considering how fast Kris Swordsmen may get outdated, their stupid promotions are really minor.

 

[PhilBowles]

Little islands count as new continents.
Candi does not require a river or lake.

This is a resurrected thread. Candi required freshwater until the patch a couple of months ago, hence the mentions of it here.

Even then the candi was an outstanding UB, the best in BNW with the possible exception of Ducal Stables, and I've almost never had a problem making use of Indonesia's UA.

The Kris Swordsman is fun and you'll be unlucky to get more than one bad promotion, if that, with the iron you're likely to have available. I really don't mind Enemy Blade - most of the time melee units will either be defending within your territory, or being used to deal the final blow to a city when their actual combat strength is pretty irrelevant anyway.

Unfortunately they removed the 'keep on upgrade if you haven't triggered the ability' effect - it used to be that when you had a Kris Swordsman whose ability was still unknown when you promoted him, he'd still get the unknown ability. Now it will only remain on promotion if you've already revealed it.

Actually, rivers are not necessary, as Candi can be built in any city

Even when they were necessary, they weren't much of a constraint. Rivers aren't uncommon, are usually somewhere you want to settle, and post-BNW the game seems to try to give players a river within a tile of the starting settler most of the time.

But yes, you do need water maps, or else the UA is useless. But there are other civs which need particulr starts: Morocco--bad without desert (Kasbah)

The kasbah is a fairly marginal improvement anyway outside a Petra city - Morocco doesn't lose a lot by being unable to build it. They really should give it the ability to be built on oases at the very least.

Arabia somewhat (oil)

Very marginally; if you don't have oil you're stuck whatever civ you're playing. More importantly Arabia relies somewhat on having varied luxuries, since the bazaar is pretty much useless if you already have, say, 3 sugar and it just gives you an extra sugar. But starts where Arabia can't use the bazaar are uncommon.

Spain needs the wonders,

This is the one civ that really depends on a specific start.

Byzantium must found a religion,

Which is a strategic issue rather than a map one; although maps will affect how easy it is to do, Byzantium can always get a religion if it focuses on doing so from the start (just as anyone else can).

Japan needs fishing boats/atolls,

This is a new addition to the UA as of the last patch - Japan worked fine before, it will work fine without these features now.

Ottomans need water,

As do England, Polynesia and Denmark to a greater or lesser degree. England and the Ottomans are the ones that do best without it due to strong UUs; Denmark is further hampered by its need for iron (shared with Rome and Japan) - England does need it for the Ship of the Line, but the Longbowman is still a powerful UU and England still gets a free spy.

Russia needs iron/horses, Incas are better off in the mountains, while Celts/Iroquois in the forest, Brazil in the jungle

I believe these civs all have start biases that are more likely than not to put them in these areas (though I have had completely flat Inca games).

, Aztecs near lakes,

For the UB. It's a good UB, but with a very capable early UU and a decent UA, the Aztecs are hardly crippled without their Floating Gardens.

Dutch near marsh, French near luxury. All in all, many civs depend on special location/religion rush.

You're really counting a requirement for "a luxury" as a special location or condition? That's a bit like saying that all civs are contingent on having access to a non-mountain land tile where they can settle.

 

[GhostSalsa]

But I think that in the grand scheme of things and considering how fast Kris Swordsmen may get outdated, their stupid promotions are really minor.

Truly. The Kris is actually nice because you already know you don't want Swordmen, Swordmen were ruined by the G&K pikemen buff and nothing has fixed that. Putting this kind of novelty bonus on a dead unit class should be a warning that this feature is for flavor and fun and not strategic value.

 

[bbbt]

Indonesia on an Archipelago is quite powerful, IMHO - you settle 4 cities pretty quickly, and then you're rolling in happiness and money from selling your extra luxes, and you can get a lot of faith, and great people, with the Candi. My fastest cultural win ever on Immortal was with Indonesia.

On a pangea they're pretty weak - the 'other continents' are usually tiny islands that you'd never settle on if it wasn't for their UA. Personally, I'd give them a minor buff and move their first unique luxury to the capital. That way they can still get some advantage even if they never find another contintent.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Yes, in my opinion the Candi is enough to make them a workable civ. It can generate more faith in one city than any wonder and can be built in all cities. In a recent Indonesia Piety game I was pulling 120 fpt in Medieval, I settled like six Great Prophets and looked like France. Plus it's a garden that can be built in any city - which fixes the Great Person deficit that coastal-focused civs often run into.

But their UA is frustrating even on island maps. I've floundered both times I've tried them on island maps, economy etc take too long to get up waiting for Compass and you don't really have any time to focus on religion.

The devs seemed to design Indonesia to answer the question, "what can be done to make settling off-continent more rewarding?" But a little free happiness doesn't fix the huge pressures on city-expansion syncing that cause most starts to fall apart if cities 2-4 aren't settled before turn 60 and if extra cities after then aren't settled ten turns after NC (because outside of that timing, building orders will constantly be out of sync and make National Wonders impossible).

 

[isau]

IMO the joy of the Candi really comes from war mongering. You take people's cities and it often comes with a religion. So you then have a way to spread that religion around yourself. There are a few other ways to do this as well (found close to a rival with a religion for example). You can also take missionaries and Great Prophets from people and do the same thing. An extra +4 or +6 Faith in one city isn't that great. In 8 cities it's kind of hilarious.

 

[GoStu]

I love this civ after the patch removing the fresh water requirement for the Candi.

Kris Swordsmen are different, but I often make some use of them while they're still fresh. I build a few, send them out, and see what promotions I get. Sadly I didn't get any Invulnerability in my last game, but I also didn't get any Evil Spirits, so that's a win for me.

The Candi is great - you just need to play with it a little to get its full potential. At the very least, it's a Garden that can be built anywhere and generates 4 Faith (2 base + 2 for your Religion). Then, any time you can pick up a Missionary off some idiot (read: Ethiopia) who let a Missionary meet some Barbarians you can keep him and spread religion to two of your own cities, adding another +2. Playing with trade routes a bit can get another religion or two, making for up to 8-10 Faith. This building is ridiculous if you're willing to put in work for it.

The extra luxuries are a little wonky to get going, so I've pretty much ignored them thus far. I'm not sure if the first cities I capture on another continent will get the bonus, but I'll find out later. It seems like a lot of people try and take advantage of this with their second, third, and fourth cities and will shoot themselves in the foot to do so. I'll wait until Astronomy to settle the Spice Islands cities, and then I'll see what I can extort for those luxuries.

I can imagine the fun in multiplayer of everyone needing one of the spices for a We Love the King Day, and then selling them off to the highest bidder.

 

[KmDubya]

One thing I found out the hard way is do not settle on a luxury on an island with Indonesia. I settled on a fur tile and it was replaced with nutmeg, just something to be aware of.

Overall I found Indonesia to be a lot of fun. They had extra happy and trade from the three unique luxuries, the candi without the river requirement was great for generating great people and the extra faith was noticeable. The Kris swordsmen were different, had a few bad and a few great promos.