Luchuirp... broken with advanced start, or just powerful?

[Levgre]

Due to their worldspell, if you build multiple cities quickly with advanced start you can get a large amount of engineer specialists, and build who knows how many wonders.

So would you say it is broken, in that it gives Luchuirp a very big, unbalancing advantage, or is just a normal advantage, just like other civs can get with lucky starts, other situations, etc?

Perhaps it is broken if you have enough points for 4 or more cities at the beginning, but if you can only build 2 it is not broken?

 

[abculatter2]

how would the luchuirup's world spell increase the number of engineer you have...?

 

[Chamaedrys]

It's powerful, but not owerpowered. Other civs (i.e. the calabim) have also powerful spells).

 

[Levgre]

how would the luchuirup's world spell increase the number of engineer you have...?

You get one engineer for each city you have. With advanced start each player usually start with more cities, while in a standard game you only have one city for a very long time.

Any advantage that starts from turn 1 is more powerful than one that starts later, because it means you grow faster.
Getting +9 Engineer GP points (+14 with philosophical) from turn 1-3(if you have to move the hammers) is powerful when everyone else still has a ways to go before they get the GP points flowing.

 

[Levgre]

It's powerful, but not owerpowered. Other civs (i.e. the calabim) have also powerful spells).

I don't see the Calabim spell as nearly as powerful, for several reasons.

1. The effect of it is spread out, in that it hurts each of your opponents equally. Any power that is more focused tends to be more game changing. Each player can recover from a 2 population hit pretty easily, but if it was a 10 population hit (earlymidgame) on one player then it would kill them.

The Luchuirp worldspell IS focused, in that it only hits you.

2. Population early on is not as useful because: there are low happiness caps, there are not good tiles to work, and the population can be quickly regrown at small city sizes. In Standard Civ it would be more powerful because that population could be slaved.



So while it is a powerful spell, I'm not sure if I'd put it in the same tier. The Luchuirp gives a short term and long term advantage that is quite significant(production for short term, free wonders and more GP points throughout the game, more effective than philosophical trait possibly), while the Calabim spell is just a temporary hit.

 

[Demus]

one thing should be noted here though: moving all hammers to 1 city by deleting the unit carrying the hammer is an exploit, and not WAD. This therefor should not be considered when judging this worldspell.
This doesn't mean popping the spell on turn 1 isn't powerful, imho even more on normal starts than on advanced starts.

About the calabim spell: it can be really powerful, if you time it right. Normally grow your city to size 3, then immediately pop the spell, allowing you to work 2 additional tiles about 10 and 20 turns earlier than normal (normal speed), and pushing all other civs back to 1 pop. Not game breaking, but definitely a large earlygame advantage.

 

[Ecofarm]

3 cities is the border between overpowered and broken.

4 free engineers producing 3GPP each in capital (+12 GPP +12 hammers +12science) turn~3? C'mon. Give me a break.

 

[Ekolite]

3 cities is the border between overpowered and broken.

4 free engineers producing 3GPP each in capital (+12 GPP +12 hammers +12science) turn~3? C'mon. Give me a break.

Moving them is an exploit. If you dont exploit the spell it isn't broken.

 

[Darksaber1]

In my opinion, the spell just helps make up for the higher production costs for Luichuirp Golems. Also, yes, moving them is a bit of an exploit, unless you are validly using it as a weapon. (Also, the AI seems to have trouble with this. In my last game, I captured tree hammers from a six city Luichuirp, and only three of those were beging used as weapons, the last was just sitting in a city.)

 

[Chamaedrys]

2. Population early on is not as useful because: there are low happiness caps, there are not good tiles to work, and the population can be quickly regrown at small city sizes. In Standard Civ it would be more powerful because that population could be slaved.

I usually build 5-6 one people cities, improve 1-2 tiles per city, buy some units with the rest of the money. Than I cast rivers of blood and I get a nice little empire of 3-citizen cities, working on good land, while the ai spend their money for population.

But you're right the Lurichirp spell is even better.

 

[rocklikeafool]

It ain't overpowered. Like I've said in other threads on world spells. The key is how you use them. If you use em right, they are a huge advantage. If you use em wrong, then you'll look pretty stupid as any human players go, "WTH? Why'd he do it now?". So, it all depends on you, the player, as too how much advantage you gain from worldspells.

 

[Zechnophobe]

This is yet another corner case strategy. I"m sure the worldspell is much stronger than it already is in advanced start... but this is an uncommon game option really only there to let players play what they want by themselves. Options like this in multiplayer should really carry harsh prejudice.

 

[Ecofarm]

Moving them is an exploit. If you dont exploit the spell it isn't broken.

I'm glad people finally agree, Jan 08:

Here's why it was put in bug thread:

You have to delete the unit who carries the hammer to get it back onto the ground to become an engineer. If it was meant to work this way, would it require a unit sacrifice? Did I miss something and Luch became a blood sacrifice sect in the lore? Obviously, it is not working as intended. Unless, of course, the team did feel that sacrificing a unit should be the cost of moving the hammer. The fact that you cannot drop them tells me that they may have had something else in mind.

I think the hammer was that once a weapon always a weapon. If it was meant to be moved, then why not just get x hammers in cap.

The problem is, as a weapon it completely sucks. +1 strength on a single unit or an engineer.... Maaaaybe if it was +4 str (for an assassin), I'd consider using it as a weapon. So, everyone turns a blind eye to deleting units for benefit.

 

[xienwolf]

From the 2.030 Bug Thread Changelog. Patch B, item 18:

18. Added an ability for golden hammers to be sacked to add a free engineer (since adding the move requirement to missions broke the old way of doing it).

From post 522 of the same thread:

Aha... all becomes clear.

1. Should it be possible for a unit carrying a Golden Hammer to maintain the 'Give to Craftsman' option? Right now it disappears once the hammer is picked up. That's the gist of what I was trying to get at with my first post but I didn't phrase it precisely.

1. I could have it work either way, but not both ways (well I could but coding one way to do things is a pain enough, coding 2 abilities for it is to much ). Which way is better?

Thus the change was made as a neccessity to squash other bugs, NOT because it was intended that you can only settle 1 free Engineer per city. If that was the intent it would have been easily blocked by just checking for a free engineer and refusing you the option to settle the hammer if there is one.


To go further: Initial design was that you could also use the Golden Hammers to instantly finish construction of a building. Maybe that ought to be put back into the game as incentive to wait longer to use the hammers, as each one is potentially an instant World Wonder.

From the Initial World Spell Designs:

Luchuirp- Gifts of Nantosuelta: Create a Golden Hammer equipment in each of the players cities (Golden Hammers can be picked up by a unit to boost his strength, used to finish a building, or given to a citizen to create a great engineer specialist)

Thus I can safely assure you that it is NOT an exploit to settle all your hammers in a single city. Advanced start with large point values is simply not a design consideration for balance, in this case and MANY others. There are simply too many variables you would have to consider to balance everything with every possible point range of advance start AND the main game in mind.

 

[rocklikeafool]

And if I'm right, Kael wasn't really worryin bout Advanced Starts, but more the game as a whole.

 

[uberfish]

Advanced start isn't balanced anyway, who cares, play the real game

 

[Ecofarm]

Advanced start is fun. After you've played a few hundred "real" games, such extra options are a real game-saver. Only Luch hammers, Elf forest cottages, Alazkan and a couple other things are way OP in advanced. In fact, except for Luch hammers, you can PvP it pretty fairly.

I like 3 versions most:

Advanced Classic era 310 points (gives AI 1-2 cities only); combined with no_settlers, it makes for nice open space with dark things.

Advanced Classic 10k+ (generally, players should not buy more than 3 cities, or it is OP vs even 6 AI cities on deity). This puts you solidly in the mid-game. You have all the basics and enough points to purchase a couple techs and begin specialization.

I don't see much of a point in advanced start ancient era. To really get midgame fast, having all the basics done (classic era) is key. The Adv Classic 310 feels like an ancient start, but the open space is so nice.

In Advanced Classic 20k OCC, you can get to tier 4 units, in MP, in ~30 minutes. With some time to comp romp, that's an MP game in ~1 hour. And it's fun to play with those tier 4 units. Whoever burns the most cities wins.

This relates to:

Ok, I got my 1st wish: settings stick. So, I'm gonna have another (if that's not too greedy). We need a setting: Max Cities per Civ __