[R&F] Mapuche First Look

Nice to have some representation from this side of the world in Civ.

The Mapuche looks great. And i love the Malón, maybe they don't look very special from a pure gameplay point of view, but they are quite accurate from a historical viewpoint. Here in Argentina Malones terrorized the south of Buenos Aires for decades. The plans to try to stop them were ammusing, almost in a Willy E. Coyote level. First some guy named Alsina planned to dig a huge trench in the south of the region to prevent the mapuche from stealing the cattle (they could cross, but not take the cattle back with them). But the plan was deemed too impractical, and maybe cartoon-like, to be effective. Later a series of forts were built to improve communication between the defense forces. To this day, many of the cities and towns south of Buenos Aires spawned from those forts.

 

I’m seeing a lot of people suggesting that you will be able to easily flip cities to your side with this leader ability and maybe I don’t fully understand the loyalty mechanics but the way I read it this just reduces the city’s loyalty to its owner but does not increase loyalty to you.

So it can make the city go independent but you still need a diplomat or other pressure to flip the city to you which takes time. Not to mention you are counting on the AI to have several units around each of their cities which is very situational and unlikely. Seems much quicker to just capture the city and move on to the next as always.

 

That would be a bit weird though, he'd be hating on everyone all the time.

 

Totally true but I bet some of the original civs could use another balance pass, even after the ones they have done for the expansion. It's just inevitable when you start adding things.

 

Series staple, hugely popular, considered a lock for the expansion before now knowing they will not be appearing, so the fan demand for them was already great and will now be moreso.

We are as "guaranteed" the Inca as can be without an official confirmation, it's just a question of when they'll show up rather than if.

 

Maybe Georgia all the time, but the rest of the civs sporadically.

 

Good. I don't want Hannibal for Carthage.

 

They should do another balance pass, but it looks like France is getting a pick-me-up just from the new espionage functionalities and the combat bonus from diplomatic visibility.

 

They seem like a weird mix of a defensive-culture focus and an aggressive conquering Civ. Not sure how I feel about these bonuses. Cool to have the Mapuche though!

 

Can someone identify the waterfall behind Lautaro in the leader screen, please? I am curious.

 

Why not?

 

Awesome civ and addition! excited. Kudos to the development team for thinking outside the box!

 

Sounds fun! No idea how feasible it will be but I will definitely try to win a domination victory without every capturing a city from a rival civ. It won't be the quickest way to do it but it would be a lot of fun!

 

At first, this Civ seemed interesting and that it would incentivize a unique 'pillage and flip' kind of guerilla strategy. But thinking about it some more, the abilities of the Mapuche seem very unsynergetic.

1) If enemy cities lose Loyalty when I kill units in their territory, I want to fight in their territory. But then again, I have a unique unit which is strong in my territory. So should I aim to war in my territory or in the territory of my enemy?
2) If I get a Combat Bonus to fight enemies in a Golden Age, that's when I want to war them, right? But on the other hand, being able to flip the cities of my enemies is much more viable when they are in a Dark Age, and certainly flipping cities of a Civ in a Golden Age will be pretty damn hard, if even possible. So, should I war Civs in a Golden Age or in a Dark Age?

Am I missing something? How is the Mapuche intended to be played?

 

That's exactly what I was thinking! Still, I guess it suits him reasonably well

 

Maybe this?
http://essay-eh.blogspot.com/2014/12/laja-waterfall-in-chile.html

 

You get a +10 combat bonus when fighting someone in a golden age and every time you kill a unit you lower the nearby citys loyalty by 5 so you can flip cities by just murdering units outside of it. If you keep the war machine rolling you can keep flipping cities until loyalty is no longer an issue, at least for the cities you want to keep.

 

Anti-Golden age combat is the civ thing. His agenda is probably casually related to the leader ability.

 

Yeah, we need to see how they work. I know people get impatient, but I think the "3 months till a patch" idea is a good one. Give time for the community to try everything out to see what's good and what's not. Let everything sink in and try to avoid the kneejerk overreactions.

 

Attack in their territory with your UU. You gain the bonus against them in their territory, and once the city flips to you and becomes your territory, you retain the bonuses via your UU and can pick off the remaining forces without losing offensive power from the owner change.

Seems like a win-win to me