[NFP] Maui seems really underwhelming

I am having such a blast with this new mode. However, I feel that all Heroes are great with certain civs in certain situations, except for Maui. He has 30 CS, which is really low for a Hero, he only has 4 Charges and his active ability is kinda weak. I mean if you use his ability and he creates a Bonus Resource instead of a Lux, you just feel really, really sad. Anyone thinks the same thing?

 

I disagree, I think his ability is really good if you use it strategically, by which I mean mostly making sea resources to give yourself really high production seaports. Maui is probably my favorite hero of all, but that's probably becuase I mostly play sim city builder style and very rarely fight serious wars

 

Is it worth having him for 1 or 2 good adjacency harbors and then spending 1000 faith to bring him back for another 1 or 2 more harbors though?

 

For me, it was worth getting him, but it definitely isn't a hero that I'll spend faith on to bring back. I got to boost some harbors, I got his relics, which is great with reliquaries, but I don't think another 4 resources will be worth the faith I would need to spend, mostly when I have a lot of better ways to spend that faith.

 

So I got some rice from him. Meh.

 

But the thing is literally every Hero gives you relics though, so that point is kinda irrelevant. The Devotion project starts at 20 Production, but then for the 2nd hero, it is 140 Production, so the scaling is massive. The question is Maui really worth the investment, when pretty much you can get anyone else for a better end result? I don't think I would ever want him, even when I play England or Phoenicia with their unique Harbors, I feel every other Heroes would give me a better shot at early conquest for more land or something like that.

 

If I'm playing a peaceful match, which I am, he's a better option than any of the military focused heroes. The choice was between him and Beowulf, who would give me the relics and nothing more. His 4 charges gave me two luxuries that wasn't in my game (pearls and whales), and helped me not only by giving production to harbors, but he also gave me decent tiles to help me grow some cities where I need to unlock another district slot ASAP. Bringing him back won't help me as much, but adopting him was worth the production.

 

I think he is more useful for certain leaders too - if I were France, the Maya, or the Cree for example, I'd probably be pretty happy to have him.

 

Maui's ability seems very strong. When other heroes are giving hundreds of science/culture or thousands of gold in the ancient era, or singlehandedly winning wars, though, heroes whose bonuses are merely very strong start to seem underwhelming. I'd like to see other heroes balanced more like Maui. Beowulf, Sinbad, and the like keep their exciting abilities, but there's no reason they need to be able to be able to use them half a dozen times per summoning.

 

I spend a number of turns creating resources with Maui and then harvesting them with Anansi

 

I guess I should blame my terrible luck cuz I only got 1 lux out of the 4 charges. If he can only grant Lux, or maybe Strategic as well, it is actually a lot better than a chance you end up with a Bonus resource.

 

It depends on the terrain. Use Maui on Grassland or Plains, there is a greater chance of creating a Bonus, since a lot of Bonus can happen in these terrains.

But if use him in Coastal Waters or Tundra, his chance of creating a Luxury is much larger - 3/5 in Coast, 5/6 in Tundra (Note: If it is Tundra Hills then 3/3, only 1/2 chance of a Luxury).

Therefore I would say he is the best Hero for Maori (he is a Polynesian Hero after all), Russia, and Canada, or a Cree that spawns in Tundra.

Edit: Oh I forget about Desert (4/5 Luxury), Woods (7/8 Luxury), and Rainforest (9/10 Luxury) - please try to use him as Mali and Brazil as well to check the effects...

 

Oh yes, I forgot to take this into consideration, that certain resources can only spawn on certain terrains! This is actually very helpful, thanks!

 

I actually think he is one of the best heroes in many situations. Certain Civs, suzerain bonuses, pantheons, wonders, districts etc. benefit from bonus or luxury resources. For example if you build temple of Artemis he can boost it to give tons of extra amenities. But like was said earlier its often best to use him in desert, woods or rain forest.

 

@DogeEnricoDandolo

You'll wish you had Maui after I ravage your lands with Anansi

In seriousness, I think @8housesofelixir made the best argument. I too didn't consider terrain, so that makes him even stronger than I first assumed. He's very useful whenever one finds oneself short of luxuries in the immediate surroundings.

Also, what kind of constraints are there on his ability? Can he spawn any luxury, or just the ones which already exist in the current map? Because if it's ANY luxury, his ability is HUGE.

 

I didn't look into the code or something, but to my knowledge there are some rules about how Luxuries would spawn on the map.

There are a total of 24 land-based Luxuries, and according to the map generation rule, each Continent will have 4 different types of Luxuries, and every Continent's 4 Luxuries are different (to allow the diversity of luxury trading).

Standard map has 4 different Continents (so 16 Lux. in total), Large has 5, Huge has 6.

Therefore, technically, if you summon Maui on a Huge map, you can get any luxury (4×6=24).

 

Anansi is OP. If you get open borders with another Civ, you can send Anansi there and just wipe out their resources. And if you get Maui as well, you can become the biggest seller in luxury resources.

 

@8housesofelixir

To be clear, what I'm asking is: does Maui break the 4 luxuries per Continent rule? Probably not. That would be really something.

 

I think it will break the rule, since the 4 Luxuries rule only applies to map generation, not for later add-ons. For instance I can use a Cheat Map Editor to add more Luxuries to my Continent after the game begins, and it will not break the game.

IIRC in PotatoMcWhiskey's recent video, he spammed Maui charges in the tundra and created 3 different Luxuries, including 1 or 2 Luxuries that doesn't seem to belong to that Continent, therefore that Continent then has 5 different Luxuries.

Edit: Make a screenshot on the said 5 different Luxuries, see below:

Spoiler :

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/jz3stv/maui_is_a_crazy_hero_he_just_generated_4_luxuries/
Here is a pic of Maui creating 4 unique Luxes, so the answer is yes.