[R&F] Mapuche First Look

I bet he dislikes civs in a Golden Age.

There are already generic 'likes dark age civs and dislikes golden age civ' and the reverse as generic traits, so having that as a default trait would be a bit strange. Imagine if he got both and it doubled down? Or worse, he naturally hated golden age civs and then got the 'hates dark age civ' trait? That would be obnoxious. He probably hates civs with high loyalty near his borders, or foreign invaders.
 
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?

Ideally, you apply a ton of pressure when your neighbour is in a dark age, and then immediately when they jump to a golden/heroic age, you declare war and put the nail in the coffin to them before their new loyalty pressure can start to impact things.
 
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?

The combat bonus vs Golden Age civs is for defense. The loyalty thing is for opportunistically poaching neighboring cities that are low on loyalty or are already free cities. You pillage when you don't intend to take cities to hinder your enemies' progress. This is not a conquest civ, it's a cultural turtle that bites back. A cultural snapping turtle, if you will.
 
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?

I think they're supposed to not synergize. The idea is that they get powerful combat bonuses to make sure they can resist against basically anything, but they're not good at offensive warfare.

And therefore we get all this:

1. The unique unit gets a bonus up to 4 (I think, might be 3) tiles away from friendly lands, so if you're fighting in or near your own lands, which is whenever you're attacked, you get a combat bonus.
2. If you're in a war with someone in a Dark Age, you have the advantage that he will have increase loyalty problems.
3. if you're in a war with someone in a Golden Age, you have the advantage that your army will be stronger.

1 is the unique unit, which is in itself defense focused. 2 and 3 are general abilities, which play out against one another. You typically have one of the bonuses, but never both at the same time, meaning that you don't get to roll over the army and cause loyalty problems. So it's a strong bonus that's basically always there, but it discourages you from using it offensively.

EDIT: Loyalty penalty actually always exists (oops), but isn't as much of a problem if your opponent is in a Golden Age, or even a Normal Age.
 
This one's all over the place.

The governor+experience bonus is nice. You can easily stick Magnus in a city with Black Marketeer and create units with better xp gains without the strategic resource.

The anti-Golden Age combat strength is very strong. +10 combat strength is very punishing; that's the strength of a corp. It's already often a pain in the butt to deal with America with equal strength units with the home continent bonus, and that's only +5 combat strength. The loyalty penalty is a good during a standoff, but I can't think of a situation where I'd be relying on a nearby city's loyalty when attacking because I can also just get loyalty from capturing the city.

The UI is also very strong, and definitely makes for a culture game contender.

The UU isn't really that good. I expected the defensive combat strength that the UU has, but I expected it to be empire-wide, not just on the unit itself. Outside of the homeland bonus, it appears to just have the normal 55 base strength. The problem with the UU is that Mapuche works best on the offensive, not the defensive. The UU is really only valuable situationally: someone in a golden age declares on Mapuche and the Cavalry unit is viable during that time.

Overall, the Mapuche seem to be a very good contender for early-to-Renaissance conquest and city grabbing. Then you'd want to calm down, build the UU for defense, and focus on the culture win.
 
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I think this time around, they aim to have civs that are all around/ balanced than have civs that has an OP but very situational ability, so each civ in civ 6 pretty much all have abilities that could come into use very early in the game and each civ would have a ability that’s relatively crappy to balance out. In the Mapuche case sure the ability is not really well synergized, but on the flip side, that means it would alway have at least one ability active, like you could loyal flip a dark age civ, and you could also have bonus combat against golden age civ, anytime is a good time for Mapuche to attack.

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

I wouldn't be surprised if your right, but I think there's a significant risk for it to work out quite poorly. Will the AI Mapuche be able to get and get the benefit of long term alliances? It's not something you can or want to avoid just to please his agenda. I can definitiely see it make some players complaining about him. "Immersion breaking" and etc.
 
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.
Sure, because if there's any point to championing enlightened attitudes about diversity and representation, it's to taunt and denigrate targets of opportunity.

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..
I think the assumption is that aggressors adopt the skirmishing route, pillaging tiles with cavalry sorties to loosen the tooth, getting it to flip.
 
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The problem I foresee with the -loyalty mechanic is if you flip an enemy city, it becomes a free city... and your units get magically teleported out of their territory. That seems more annoying than anything. Oh, and some new units that are probably hostile to you appear. That's if you can even manage a flip with a measly -5 loyalty per kill. I'm honestly not impressed with that ability given the numbers we've seen so far in regards to loyalty and this ability, you might be able to flip a city that was on the verge of flipping anyway, but I'm not convinced that's actually a good idea. And the free city isn't likely to have enough units to kill to flip it.

I like the rest of the Civ's abilities but that one seems weak to me. I'm all for more interesting improvements, farming every flatland tile gets dull and makes me miss cottages.
 
As an aside, it would be funny to force your neighbor into a Golden Age so you can declare war on them. I don't know all of the Historic Moments, but I'm pretty sure there are ways to boost Era Score on neighbors if you try hard enough.
 
There are already generic 'likes dark age civs and dislikes golden age civ' and the reverse as generic traits, so having that as a default trait would be a bit strange. Imagine if he got both and it doubled down? Or worse, he naturally hated golden age civs and then got the 'hates dark age civ' trait? That would be obnoxious. He probably hates civs with high loyalty near his borders, or foreign invaders.

Some leader traits have a generic version already. Those leaders are excluded in the files to get the generic version.
 

First indigenous American civ to have a mounted unit in Civ VI.

It's a strange irony that although horses evolved on N. America (like humans in Africa) they became extinct on the continent and returned as a result of colonialism. One (perhaps the only) time colonialists re-introduced a "native" species :lol:

Do we know what tech/civic unlocks the Malon Raider?
 
This UI seems very strong and maybe even fun to play. End it's for lacking culture win civ. That is the reason not to rant too much :)
As for the rest. Maybe not very bad and too dull, but still kinda meh. Sorry was expecting something more as for Inca replacement.

EDIT: You know what is the worst thing about them? Timing. First of all, I like new stuff, but in this expansion, I feel kinda overdosed. Cree, Georgia, and Scotland would be enough. Mapuche is a
drop that broke the camel's back for me. If they will be introduced in a second expansion as a new South American Civ it will be even more than ok, but not know. Their reception is spoiled by premature inclusion.
 
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The problem I foresee with the -loyalty mechanic is if you flip an enemy city, it becomes a free city... and your units get magically teleported out of their territory. That seems more annoying than anything. Oh, and some new units that are probably hostile to you appear. That's if you can even manage a flip with a measly -5 loyalty per kill. I'm honestly not impressed with that ability given the numbers we've seen so far in regards to loyalty and this ability, you might be able to flip a city that was on the verge of flipping anyway, but I'm not convinced that's actually a good idea. And the free city isn't likely to have enough units to kill to flip it.

I like the rest of the Civ's abilities but that one seems weak to me. I'm all for more interesting improvements, farming every flatland tile gets dull and makes me miss cottages.

Keep in mind that this is 5 loyalty per kill on top of any existing loyalty effects. So throw Amani in your closest city and you'll already be bleeding them dry from loyalty. The 5 per kill isn't supposed to be enough to flip a city on its own.
 
I think they're supposed to not synergize. The idea is that they get powerful combat bonuses to make sure they can resist against basically anything, but they're not good at offensive warfare.
This is not a conquest civ, it's a cultural turtle that bites back. A cultural snapping turtle, if you will.

I see, so it seems that the lack of synergy is necessary to not make them a conquest Civ. I hope that the UI is as strong as it seems to give the necessary edge that makes the snapping turtle genuinely a cultural one.

I think this time around, they aim to have civs that are all around/ balanced than have civs that has an OP but very situational ability, so each civ in civ 6 pretty much all have abilities that could come into use very early in the game and each civ would have a ability that’s relatively crappy to balance out.

The one-trick pony kind of Civs certainly feel less creative. I can imagine the Mapuche providing very different gameplays depending on the nature of each game they are played.
 
Actually, it is a rather original civ. I really like it ! It's warmonger, but not too much, it's cultural, but not too much. I'm pleasently surprise, unlike, say, Scotland.
 
Keep in mind that this is 5 loyalty per ill on top of any existing loyalty effects. So throw Amani in your closest city and you'll already be bleeding them dry from loyalty. The 5 per kill isn't supposed to be enough to flip a city on its own.

I don't know if it'll work out or not, but I prefer this to just another stronger/cheaper unit.
 
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