[R&F] Mapuche First Look

The Hussites? Nah. But when you mentioned it, Kingdom of Bohemia would be nice

 

I have to say, I LOVE this civ. I was feeling a little disappointed with a lot of the civ designs for R&F so far, but the Mapuche look incredible. They did end up being the culture civ after all! And giving them loyalty bonuses basically makes them a civ IV style culture civ that specializes in city flipping.

I'm not much of a pillager, so I don't love the UU, but everything else really intrigues me. They made a very interesting civ design out of all the most obscure and under-utilized (or new) features. Loyalty and governor boosts were missing in the other civ designs, but here they are, in full force! More appeal bonuses is always good too...that feature hasn't reached its full potential yet.

To top it all off, Lautaro is a true man of legend and he looks fantastic here. I'm surprised they gave him a spanish sword, but it fits his MO perfectly. This Toqui earned his place.

 

Ok let’s crack the nut.

First, the combat bonus close to land. It depends how close we are talking about, if it is 3 tiles for example, forget it. In most of my games, I want to conquer cities that are 10-15 tiles away. The new starting location system and loyalty mechanic are even going to reinforce this fact that very close combat is situational.

Second, the loyalty bonus. Well, if I am on an enemy territory, I’m attacking it, right? So I want to take the city anyway. The bonus just means: instead of attacking your opponent, you... attack a free city. Just a color change, then.

And bonus against civilizations in golden age, we must see how big it is, but another civilization being in golden age is currently not something you can anticipate, so how do you plan warfare accordingly? Are you gonna wait until your target hits a golden age, not knowing when this will happen?

No, really, I predict a really low position of this civ, unfortunately.

 

Taking a closer look at the video, Lautaro's loyalty effect seems to only be 5 points per unit. This seems very low, given that loyalty loss/gain per turn can easily reach the double digits. Even a city that was exactly breaking even on loyalty would require you to kill 20 units to flip it to a free city. The ability seems very interesting conceptually, but unless the numbers are increased, I have a hard time seeing it do anything but slightly accelerate the fall of already doomed cities.

 

I love the Culture game. I love pillaging. I love flipping cities. This is a nice civ for me.

 

The "why no Inca" whining is getting really tiresome. There's a reason they are saving some of the "big" civs. You can look forward to Inca, Ottomans etc in the next expansion.

 

So, I just watched the video again in hi-def, and the city Lautaro takes is the Spanish city of Seville. Love the irony.

 

As a semi-serious sidenote because I couldn't watch the FL with sound - is it pronounced "muh-pu'chay", or "mah'pu-chay"? I've always wondered which was correct

 

I would not advise using First Looks as your guide to pronunciation...

 

The tears of unfathomable Ottoman sadness on social media warm my blackened heart.

Civilization Rise and Fall of Expectations <3

Ngulu Mapu

 

While you're here Sarah, what's Lautaros agenda?

 

I don't know if they will work well in practice or not; but I like the idea of some rebel raiders roaming the far countryside, picking off weak pieces of the Evil Empire when they can, and slowly drawing the hearts of The People to their cause.

 

Do free cities enforce their borders? If so the enemy Civ would have to declare war to defend their newly free city; it would also allow you to capture the city after making peace with the original owner

 

Sarah, you do a much better job at pronouncation than Sean.

You are doing a great job with R&F btw!!

 

I bet he dislikes civs in a Golden Age.

 

I know balance issues will allways be a part of a game like civ but I cannot understand why they took that direction. Just compare french UI with persian and mapuche one... Seriously they are available earlier, provide as much culture but are not that demanding in planification and placement. Castel should get a major upgrade.

 

Could you imagine getting Lautaro, Poundmaker, Chandragupta and Tamar in an expansion pack for CivIII? It would have been totally unthinkable. For all the Ottoman/Byzantine/Inca whining on social media, it's great to see how far the series has come in terms of left-field choices and representation.

 

You can't straight up compare improvements to improvements. Civs are balanced holistically. Compare the total of unique components of one civ against the total of unique components of another.

 

Of course Sarah! But I'm still curious at least how you pronounced it.