lanun

[Sureshot]

no , actually what i am saying is that the lanun using sea tiles is about as useful of a tactic as the grigory rushing a religion.

it might be that atm coastal cities are jsut crap and the lanun jsut have the best crap available. personally i will continue to not play them til they are fixed and continue to not build coastal cites for much the same reasons (i tend to maybe , maybe build 1 if i need the health and a resource is there)

don't worry, some people just don't understand that when you play lanun you end up with tons of coastal cities and the more water the better. personally i never bothered with land improvements at all and the goal was to get as much water as possible. but even before the improvement to land improvements lanun sucked in the mid to end game, now they just suck even more. i just don't build coastal cities anymore, because it's just weakening yourself (one coastal city is good enough for all purposes).

the solution according to some people apparently is to work the land instead, but i think ill just play a different civ that isnt meant to be on water if im gonna do that. only play lanun if you don't plan for the game to last very long or if everyone will be stuck on little islands with tons of water, because afterwards they lose all flavour and get stuck with the worst city spots.

 

[se7en]

So.. it's been a few months since anyone was discussing Lanun strategy/weaknesses. Has anything changed here? They are my favorite civ from a RP perspective, but I have found it hard to dish out as much pwnage as I can with someone like the Calabim.

Is it possible to build a good set of coastal cities from which you can project your power inland? Is there a "silver bullet" combination of research for the Lanun?

 

[Sureshot]

i added coastal cottages for them in my mod, so theyre still fun to play heh

 

[se7en]

yeah, i've played a few games as them looking for something that works but it really turns into a "how long can i survive" test, as opposed to "how can i win." at least on immortal, anyway.

 

[Sureshot]

have you tried using the coastal cottages? with up to 4 food and 9 commerce per water tile theyre able to do quite well, especially if you get OO

 

[Eddiit]

This should be revisited for the main mod. The lanun could definetly use more flavor and more incentive to build water cities.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Or actuall floating cities... (maybebuilt by Work boat, and builds all normal buildings, maybe some extra, and only naval units and boarding parties...) they probably should come later on during the game.

 

[se7en]

If anyone decides to improve them as far as flavor here's some good links for images.. as you can tell I'd like to see Lanun reflect more of the Cthulu/OO influence that their city names reflect. Or, maybe some of this stuff could be used for more general OO units. Anyway, its worth looking at.

These are images from the Call of Cthulu CCG (there are next, last, etc. buttons)
http://www.pen-paper.net/artgallery/MattDixon/ShubNiggurath.jpg.html

This is art from some French illustrator who has pretty cool characters:
http://a.tuis.free.fr/news.html

 

[Eddiit]

Waterworld style floating cities would be cool along with a set of lanun only water improvements.

 

[zyrev]

Bump heheh....

Yeah, I love the Lanun, they got style and individualism, but whenever I see them I wonder myself how am I suppose to play as them? You see, each city has exactly the same amount of tiles to work, unless you are the kuriotates; this would leave the Lanun with less favoritism toward building coastal cities simply because you CAN'T improve those tiles with workers, and now with specialized cities that came with fire phase, Lanun has been less attractive ever since.

There could be many ways to bring this *finished* civilization to par with the others. Unique Civics, Increased technologies, improvable water tiles, you name it; But playing as the Lanun you don't necessarily have to build a coastal city, however if that is to happen, then that would *kill* the concept of the civilization. So yeah, I hope the developers give it another glance to this civilization like how they did for the Doviellos.

-z

 

[Arwon]

Maybe a few new Lanun-specific buildings for coastal cities, placed along the sea-exploration or economy tech-lines, would improve them further and increase their mastery of the ocean. If we're weighting them towards the coasts, building coastal cities should bestow a great deal of advantage. Then, to balance giving the Lanun much greater strength in their coastal cities, they could also be further limited in what they can build inland.

A few suggestions regarding buildings:

*Maintainance-reducing coastal building, additional to the courthouse, to help reduce the penalties they get for spreading out along the coasts. Maybe something like a Pirates' Hideout, reflecting the rugged independenceand decentralised nature of pirates, that reduces maintainance another 20-30% additional to courthouses.

Or, alternatively, such a building could replace the courthouse completely (what use have pirates for landlubber laws?) completely, be coast-specific, and reduce maintainance by 60% or so, meaning that you can never reduce maintainance for interior cities but can sprawl further along the coasts with less penalties.

*Coastal food-storage building, a Wharf or Fishyard or something, functioning like a smokehouse/granary but giving health from seafood. This would help their coastal cities to grow faster, something like the Calabim's Breeding Pit, thus giving them more synergy with OO and slavery.

*Coastal commerce building, maybe a Port, giving +25% commerce like the Money Changer, or increased trade routes, or both. Or this could instead be a replacement for the Money Changer which gives bigger boosts but can only be built along the coasts.

*Trade building (East Eberus Trading Company!!!) giving increased trade routes or +1 from Pearls/Fur/Wines, or both. Alternatively, versions of the Inn and Tavern which give additional trade-route benefits when built in coastal cities (is it possible to set a building so it gives +1 normal trade route AND another +1 if it is on the coast?) or Inns and Taverns which are better than regular but can only be built in coastal cities.

*Unique replacement for the shipyard with either an increased ship production boost or a secondary forge-type boost to general hammers in the city, or both.

If some of these are a bit unbalanced, they could replace a regular building instead (for example, replacing the Smokehouse with a coastal-only building which gives health from seafood AND livestock).

Alternatively, some of the regular buildings could perhaps, in addition to their primary function, provide secondary benefits to navy units... their archery range could give a Drill Promotion to boats, Forges could give a strength boost, Training Yards could give them increased XP, for example. Maybe a later-game building could even give the Boarding promotion.

The new sea monsters offer some interesting possibilities as well... perhaps the Lanun could get a unique boat capable of enslaving them.

On the plus side, the Lanun do have War Tortoises now! A 10/18 water-walking unit is pretty cool, it's just a pity that the cavalry techs you have to go through are so far off their best tech lines and horsemen aren't exactly keeping in flavour with a bunch of Cthulu-worshipping pirates. To fix this, either they could be moved to another tech, or some more of the Lanun cavalry line could be rendered more flavourful and amphibious.

I can't think what tech war tortoises could be moved to, though, since the sea-exploration tech line ends at Astronomy (I think), which costs about a tenth of Domesticate Elephants and the other handful of similarly expensive techs don't fit any better. I suppose there could be a couple of additional techs requiring Astronomy and Seafaring? That'd also offer some other possibilities, too.

If not following this path, though, to further reward players for pursuing the cavalry line, perhaps the Lanun could get some more flavourful unique unit to replace the Camel, since it's on the path to War Tortoises. A domesticated sea serpent or something? OR A LAND SHARK.

 

[sarang012]

Something like a free "Pirate" promotion that gave experience for raiding might be neat (equivalent to a victorious combat).

The tortoise could be changed to some sort of siege engine and just place it in construction. Maybe medium high strength and a collateral damage bonus but low withdrawal.

It might be neat if the seafaring tech caused pearls to randomly spawn within your cultural boarders (on water of course). As is, I've only seen pearls spawn once, and that was surrounded by ice. Or give additional gold on fish, clams, etc.

 

[Gutus]

Actually I am playing Lanun all the time (on Prince now, always continent per team/random continents, rocky and medium water level, so kinda type of games, where Lanun can be exploited). I like them especially because they are much different. I never really spammed farms, I always preferred cottages over farms. Additionally I have lots of problems with happiness and health in the early game. I am able to compensate this in the mid game with some buildings and civics, but anyway superb-big cities aint something I have while playing Lanun. They also do not seem mandatory to win.

I think Lanun are good with what they have, its just that the AIs lack the tendency to exploit water wars. It is very easy to get an initial ship armada and block your continent. With tenths of my pirate ships, with some minor support of frigates and arcane barges (I tend not to build to many man-o-wars) I am able to destroy any AI fleet, so that my empire never sees real war (maybe some initial barbs, as I like raging barbs or demons after AC reaches some number). With arcane barges and mages with fire, I do not need gunpowder and invest in cannons, while stygian guard with iron upgrades seem better than muskets (and you do not need to build a lot of structures in your town, but you HAVE to get OO).

I think the problem is you need to like a completely different playstyle than one that works with most of the civs (e.g. not everybody likes Calabims and vampires).

What I would like to see is the tendency of AI to start early water wars, or at least to see the AI actually willing to control water.

 

[Sureshot]

coastal cottages work very nicely for lanun

 

[driekan]

In the late game, working the water with the Lanun as is becomes simply (Pardon the choice of words) ********. My usual late-game city has tons of farms built around rivers with agriculture/aristocracy. With a financial civ, that's 5 food and 4 gold per tile. With the Lanun, you will have 3 food and 3 gold per tile in the beginning of the game, and you keep that unchanged throughout the ENTIRE game. After the mid-game, it becomes really one-sided.
I believe they should get some more exclusive benefits to be able to better exploit the sea. Improving water tiles is an idea I always liked, but if you're really not going to have that, then techs should improve the yield of your water tiles. Example: Optics +1 gold every water tile. Astronomy +1 food every water tile.

Or maybe Civics and the like. But I do think they need some extra oomph from water tiles in the late game

Edit: Technology-based water tile improvement only for the Lanun, of course

 

[Uberness]

Give every civ the ability to make improvements on coastal water squares with workboats, give Lanun the ability to make those improvements cheaper or faster or better and also on ocean squares, problem solved.

 

[Thelo]

Actually, I've found the Lanun's +1 food on water to be very strong throughout the game.

In the early game, you don't have all the workers you need, so the instant food from water is very useful.

And in the late game, most squares with your city are being worked on, including water tiles, so this gives a nice differential bonus compared to other civs who have to work water tiles for less.

The Lanun don't need another sea productivity boost.

 

[Gutus]

I think the Lanun were made to play on maps with large ammounts of water. So that each of your cities is coastal. With these settings I can settle resources on the whole map, even though I have to place cities on tundra/snow. With sea trade routes I do not have to build roads to trade. I always rush for OO and then for astronomy. But I do not play on maps with large land masses. On Prince I have no trouble to be in the first three civs for the whole game. I really think they are just made for a different playstyle and different maps and wont work well on ex. earth-like maps. In my opinion no more buffs is required (slavery/conquest is good enough to cover the production lacks and you can start placing your cottages a lot sooner).

 

[driekan]

Assuming other civs also build city on coasts, yes, the Lanun will be better than them. But building on the coast is never a good idea unless you are dying for the extra trade, or have something strongly against building workers. Any worked tile on land will give you better yield mid-late game than any water tile. That includes deserts, once you turn them into plains.

In this situation, +1 food on water, -1 food from farms actually becomes a disadvantage. Also worth noting that unless you play Kuriotates, there is a good chance that most of your cities wont have more than one or two tiles of water.

 

[Thelo]

Assuming other civs also build city on coasts, yes, the Lanun will be better than them. But building on the coast is never a good idea unless you are dying for the extra trade, or have something strongly against building workers. Any worked tile on land will give you better yield mid-late game than any water tile. That includes deserts, once you turn them into plains.

Ah, but there are strong incentives to build coastal cities that apply to everyone.

The most important one is that you can often place two coastal cities where you could only place one fully-landed city, which increases your total workable tiles a lot. When you're not playing with huge maps, that makes a big difference in your total number of cities and production. You work just as many land tiles, you just also work the water tiles.

Of course, if you do play huge maps, you might effectively get away with avoiding to work water tiles. But for most games, you won't have the luxury of practically infinite land on which to place cities, so you will work a lot of water tiles, whether you want it or not.

There's also the obvious benefit of being able to build boats, and benefiting from better trade conditions. Simply put, anyone can benefit from coastal cities, and saying that it is never a good idea is plainly wrong. Therefore, since the Lanun have an additional clear advantage with coastal cities (or in general, any city with water tiles in range), their bonus can be quite significant.