Leader Discussion - José Rizal

[Siptah]

Hey all! Created an account on here to say that I think Jose Rizal may be very underrated. Tempo is king in Civ VII from my experience and Rizal reliably starts the game with an extra 120 Gold, Culture, and Influence due to 6 narrative events that you will nearly always get by turn 30 on a standard map. 5 of these events are from his quest to meet other Civs and come with extra goody hut style bonuses as well, while the 6th is related to your civ choice (I tend to go with Han as they are strong, synergize with Rizal's ability, and the Shi Dafu can have additional narrative events; Han's first narrative event is I think related to killing a unit with the Chu-Ko-Nu, which is pretty easy to get accidentally very early). That extra culture means you often have your choice of Pantheon which if you are not sure what to pick, could always use to go with a Pantheon that has two more narrative events associated with it. The extra influence means that in the very early game, you can both suzerain that city state that you want as well as launch and support early endeavors to form key alliances. I recently played a game where I was able to drown Xerxes KoK Persia in negative war support and was fairly quickly able to take their capital even despite the waves of Immortals, all of the combat bonuses Xerxes and Persia have, and the deity combat bonuses, which to be honest surprised me at the time. I'd explain the usefulness of early Gold tempo, but I think everyone is familiar with Isabella, so I will move on from that.

The lengthier celebrations mean that you get that 20% bonus the entire game without any effort. Pairing this with any Wine or Fur Resources on the map ensures that you get that 20% bonus in whatever you want, plus those additional Gold and Culture bonuses consistently, which can add up quickly. I know a lot of folks tend to say that it is easy to chain celebrations, but generally if you can chain celebrations easily without Rizal's bonuses (or those of a similar leader or Civ like Ashoka WR or Maurya), then you probably aren't pushing past your settlement limit far enough and your economy is suffering for it.

As far as policy slots go, I suppose my question is how many of those are needed to offset having a permanent 20% bonus to a yield of your choice? I often find in non-Rizal games that a lot of the ones I slot in the last spots are fairly mediocre, but again all of that is anecdotal and there is a lot more time needed to determine which is more important on average since there a lot of variables that can play into things. Generally, I prefer the constant 20% bonus over a civic with a smaller yield I don't care as much about, but that is just my opinion. Curious as to what y'all think!

Thanks for the extensive post. Makes me want to try Rizal again to see if I can maximize his usefulness.

 

[UWHabs]

To be fair, the intention was probably that celebrations are a rarer thing, and the length stretch will be a coveted thing. But slowing things down - I'm not sure it'd be a good move from the devs. Not right now at least, when part of the community start to say snowball is the game.

Once you get the snowball going, celebrations are way too easy. When you can chain them, then yeah, all those +50% duration bonuses are net negatives. But if you're not chaining them, then it's quite useful. The fact that everyone assumes that basically once you get those exploration era happiness buildings online, you're just chaining celebrations is the real bug.

 

[pjotroos]

Once you get the snowball going, celebrations are way too easy. When you can chain them, then yeah, all those +50% duration bonuses are net negatives. But if you're not chaining them, then it's quite useful. The fact that everyone assumes that basically once you get those exploration era happiness buildings online, you're just chaining celebrations is the real bug.

Yup, that's it exactly. I never properly looked into it - never saw the need - but based on how it feels, I'm assuming the celebration cost is either flat, or has very weak linear increase. It feels like the natural fix would be to start a bit lower, but then scale the cost expotentially for each following one. If you could only realistically guarantee a fixed amount of them each era, slightly longer celebrations would work nicely as the leader ability; you start your 2nd and 3rd a bit later than you otherwise would, but you get to keep the effect for longer across the era.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Once you get the snowball going, celebrations are way too easy. When you can chain them, then yeah, all those +50% duration bonuses are net negatives. But if you're not chaining them, then it's quite useful. The fact that everyone assumes that basically once you get those exploration era happiness buildings online, you're just chaining celebrations is the real bug.

This also emphasis on José Rizal being the early game focused leader, unfortunately.

 

[Krikkit1]

Yup, that's it exactly. I never properly looked into it - never saw the need - but based on how it feels, I'm assuming the celebration cost is either flat, or has very weak linear increase. It feels like the natural fix would be to start a bit lower, but then scale the cost expotentially for each following one. If you could only realistically guarantee a fixed amount of them each era, slightly longer celebrations would work nicely as the leader ability; you start your 2nd and 3rd a bit later than you otherwise would, but you get to keep the effect for longer across the era.

In the Strategy section there is a Formula Analysis thread... it appears the cost goes up, and then is capped after the 7th Celebration.
(if it wasn't capped it would max out around 30 and then begin going down.. reaching 0 at around 50 or so)

 

[Lord Lakely]

Worst leader in the game, his ability reduces the rate at which you acquire new policy slots.

Deceptively good with Ming though. Ming really doesn't care about social policy slots.

He's not that strong but I prefer him over Lafayette and Emperor Napoleon. What frustrates me about the design is that there's no real way to tell when you're getting your free Influence and Culture, other than eyeballing your influence gauge.