Leader Discussion - Gilgamesh

[disjointaccount]

Time for another one of these threads, as we have a new (though newer for some than others) leader in the form of the returning Gilgamesh.
His leader ability is Once Mortal, Twice Divine, which is (I believe) a first-of-its-kind five-parter:

• Gain War Support when you have exactly one Ally (+2, iirc)
• When you defeat an enemy Unit, gain Influence equal to a set percentage of its Combat Strength
• All basic Endeavors are unlocked
• Endeavors with Allies don’t count against the limit of having one Endeavor of a given type active at a time
• Allies can support your Endeavors for free.

His attributes are Diplomatic and Militaristic, but he has access to every endeavour anyway so that doesn't count for much.
He has no starting bias.
Playing as Gilgamesh unlocks Abbasid (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Camels), Chola (otherwise unlocked by having 3 Cities with their City Centre adjacent to a non-lake coastal tile), and Norman (otherwise unlocked by impriving 3 Iron or building 5 Walls) in the Exploration Age, and Ottoman (otherwise unlocked by conquering a capital), Qajar (otherwise unlocked by having a Settlement with at least 5 Specialists), and France (otherwise unlocked by improving 3 Wine) in the Modern Age.
As an AI leader, his agenda is Ally of Enkidu - Increase Relationship by a Medium Amount with leaders who have started or supported the most Endeavors. Decrease Relationship by a Small Amount with leaders in Alliances with others.
So what are everyone's thoughts? Likes/dislikes? Fun strategies? Good civs to pair him with?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Not a Civ7 player, but I just dislike verbose multi-clause abilities, and Gilgamesh is one of the worst offenders I've seen

 

[Lord Lakely]

Very strong but not overpowered because his endeavours still cost him Influence. I do feel like he can go pretty hard with certain Civs, like Greece or Silla but I've only played him with Assyria so far.

Just you know, 'basic endeavours' are all six of the 'attribute endeavours'. He gets Research Agreements, Cultural Exchanges, Farmer's Markets, etc.

 

[disjointaccount]

I'm not sure if I'd say he's overtuned; he's definitely flirting with the line. I don't think a nerf would be unwarranted. Being able to stack Military Aid especially is very very strong, and that's before considering the war support and influence generation from combat.

 

[Krikkit1]

Any news on mementos?

 

[disjointaccount]

Any news on mementos?

I'll be at my PC in ~half an hour or so, so I'll check then if no one has in the meantime.

 

[disjointaccount]

Not blown away by any of these

 

[Manpanzee]

He looks pretty solid on first impression. My experience with Lakshmibai is that +influence on kills is an excellent ability that scales well into higher difficulties. Lakshmibai gets 100% of combat strength as influence, while Gilgamesh apparently gets 50%. I think the "other" stuff in Gil's kit is probably a bit better than the other stuff in Lakshmibai's, but maybe not by enough to beat out the raw influence difference.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I get why they wanted to give him Influence generation since he sort of depends on it, but from a cursory glance I think the Influence on kills could easily be axed from his ability. It would reduce the wordiness and leave the focus on his Alliance abilities, which are cooler anyway.

The War Support and Endeavor bonuses leave him plenty strong enough, imo

 

[clapyourhands]

I am so excited for me and my debatably homoerotic situationship to pillage the cedar forests of Persia next patch, and be historically accurate about it this time

 

[Lord Lakely]

I get why they wanted to give him Influence generation since he sort of depends on it, but from a cursory glance I think the Influence on kills could easily be axed from his ability. It would reduce the wordiness and leave the focus on his Alliance abilities, which are cooler anyway.

The War Support and Endeavor bonuses leave him plenty strong enough, imo

The +2 War Support for only being in One Alliance is the most superfluous part of his ability.

You get an additional +3 CS endeavour per alliance, so you may as well stack those, especially in Modern.

I'm pretty sure Gilgamesh's kit will be nerfed to only be in effect if he's in exactly one alliance, but as it stands...

 

[Krikkit1]

View attachment 756966View attachment 756967View attachment 756970
Not blown away by any of these

I could see the bottom two if they were increased (maybe per age or doubled.. or double influence in cities)
For the top one...I'd say also say add a +1% relationship boost to diplomatic actions per current Relationship level if >0.

The +2 War Support for only being in One Alliance is the most superfluous part of his ability.

You get an additional +3 CS endeavour per alliance, so you may as well stack those, especially in Modern.

I'm pretty sure Gilgamesh's kit will be nerfed to only be in effect if he's in exactly one alliance, but as it stands...

I think the focusing on one ally is something they want to have as part of his kit... I think maybe changing the influence to be per unit your allies (or suzereins) kill would make it more interesting.

 

[disjointaccount]

Having played some more with him now I'm increasingly convinced the "Endeavours with allies don't count towards the limit of one" is just broken. Stacking military aid is so absurdly powerful (one ally + one military aid with a non-ally gives you 7-8 CS for the cost of two endeavours, factoring in the +2 war support from having only one ally), and if you can get an ally early enough for it to matter for snowballing, culture and science are really good too.

If being able to double dip was gone, he'd still be able to run 3x the endeavours everyone else can, and the double-dipping is kind of at odds with the "one ally" aspect of the rest of his kit anyway, since it encourages you to spam allies to get as many endeavours off as possible. I agree the war support feels very superfluous too and I'd be fine with it going.

 

[Krikkit1]

Having played some more with him now I'm increasingly convinced the "Endeavours with allies don't count towards the limit of one" is just broken. Stacking military aid is so absurdly powerful (one ally + one military aid with a non-ally gives you 7-8 CS for the cost of two endeavours, factoring in the +2 war support from having only one ally), and if you can get an ally early enough for it to matter for snowballing, culture and science are really good too.

If being able to double dip was gone, he'd still be able to run 3x the endeavours everyone else can, and the double-dipping is kind of at odds with the "one ally" aspect of the rest of his kit anyway, since it encourages you to spam allies to get as many endeavours off as possible. I agree the war support feels very superfluous too and I'd be fine with it going.

Limiting the ally bonuses to when he has only one ally would make it interesting (a bit like Wa where only one person is chosen as her special friend every 15 turns)... or even just remove the "Run multiple Endeavors" part entirely... since you should send them all to your single Ally.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

What language is he speaking?

 

[Sagax]

Oh he’s both a chad AND a diva.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Gilgamesh speaks Akkadian here. We looked into Sumerian, but were able to get a more robust translation in Akkadian, and this fits the "this is Gilgamesh of the later epics" theme.

In keeping with the Epic, Gilgamesh is ABSOLUTELY a chad AND a diva.

 

[m_mus]

The mementos look really uninspiring unfortunately.

 

[Doratov]

Guys... can we please not petition a nerf for something that's just released, seems fun and entices a different gameplay. I can break the game with every leader, does it matter that one breaks it a bit more than the other? If there'd be a multiplayer balance separately, then I'd say go for it, but single should be fun with game breaking stuff littered all over.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

While I do agree that it is too early to seriously advocate for nerfs, I disagree that singleplayer should be less balanced than multiplayer. I like balance in all parts of my games- it makes it more fun for me to decide between roughly equal choices. We're all just looking to have fun in our own ways. To some of us, the fun is in balance discussions.