[NFP] Maya First Look

[SammyKhalifa]

If you don't have plantations, your campuses are hardcapped at +3,

Hardcapped at +3.3.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Wait a minute... Who told you, you have to work those improved farm titles from the first turn? You need them only for adjacency bonuses and housing. You will have a much better yield around to work on. Yes, it is a 50 (which is 45 in fact because of UA) production loss comparing to "normal civ" and nobody said it is not a challenge. You may ask why to build a farm and don't work yield? Consider this as a 45 production cost of flexible 3 science adjacency Campus you can build by half price (because it's a unique district), and in the early game, your range units are halfway between archer and crossbowman firepower. Don't overreact. There is a space between good Civ, medium Civ, and worst than Georgia

 

[Bug Repellent]

I have a hard time seeing how the housing issue isn't crippling. It seems like that detriment would outweigh all of the civ's bonuses. Starting every city with 2 housing is seriously debilitating, and especially your capital. You get -50% growth when you're one point from your housing cap, and your capital will start at 1/2. You literally begin the game at half growth rate until you start making farms. Think of any other civ and ask yourself how much you'd enjoy an opener of builder into farms. Not very much, I wager. Farms are seriously terrible until Feudalism, and not that great even when they get their adjacency. And what if you don't start in farmable land? That's practically a forced restart. You'd never get off the ground.

The cap doesn't start with 2 housing. It starts with 3, since the palace gives you +1 housing as well. Therefore, your cap will reach 2 pop just like any civ since it starts with 3 housing. The palace also gives you +2 production. If you settle a 2F+2P tile and your 1 pop works another 2F+2P tile, the cap has 6P. Once it gets to 2 pop, you'll have 8P if you can work another 2F+2P tile. So your Mayan civ will be just like any other civ for the first 8-10 turns. The first builder is 50P. This means at 2 pop you can crank out your first builder in 9 turns. You'll have to do this earlier than usual, but it's not that bad. The first builder can be used to build two more farms, one in your second and one in your third city. This means these cities start with 3.5 housing instead of 2, so they can get to pop 2 w/o any penalty as well. So now you work 3 farms, one in each of your first 3 cities. But these farms also give you 1G each, which in actuality is 1G in your cap and 2.2G in the other cities since you have the +10% bonus. These 3.2G per turn are even better than the first your trader, which is 3G when sent to a city state. Once you get to Craftsmanship, with Ilkum your builders will be 30% cheaper, so cranking a few more builders will be even quicker. Furthermore, you have access to granaries at Pottery... so again, +2 housing. Fixing the housing problem is not that difficult. Maya will have a good gold economy with their 1.1 G from each farm so in your 4th city you'll likely be buying the granary right at the start.

 

[Zaarin]

That was less of a suggestion and more my polite way of saying "please stop with the endless posts about leader animations"

Forgive me if this suggestion seems radical, but, if the discussion of the leader model and animations doesn't interest you, maybe just don't participate in it? There's plenty of discussion surrounding the civ abilities going on at the same time.

 

[schondette]

Amen to that!


Good, good! I don't want to see anything like those Civ5 style national wonders' requirements or that nonsense of global happiness ever again. You do not have to artificially de-incentivize one style, to make another one viable.


I don't think there is a 'persisting core issue' here. You can very well play 3-4-5 city game if you want, and win most of the time.

I never made those arguments good sir. Im simply pointing out the fact that it lacks any strategic depth to civ building. You can win with a 3-4-5 city sure. But you can win easier with a 5-6-7 city etc. And Maya civ bonuses arent changing that in any real way

 

[UWHabs]

At the very least, whether they're a top tier civ or an okay civ, I do like how they're going to change how you play. Completely ignoring freshwater will make a more curious city building, and as someone who has a bad tendency to plant farms all around, they'll be a good civ for that. And their archers will be some of the best of any at defending you from outside attacks - to me, they're going to be a strong turtle civ.

My flaws are that their largest malus comes in before any of their bonuses kick in, so like Mali, they're going to be slower out of the gate. I think I'd rather see them with a more flat bonus of, say, +1 housing per improvement (farm, camp, plantation) rather than 1.5 from farms and no extra for the others.

And I do think people are downplaying that +10% bonus. It's kind of like Korea or Scotland's bonuses, but you always get it for the cities that matter the most. If you combine it with a likely constant +5% from having extra amenities, that's a solid bonus. Plus, remember, a city will gain the amenity from settling next to a luxury whether you have it or not, so they should be able to easily sell off all the first luxuries they improve for extra gold. I do think the farm gold bonus could be a little stronger, even something as simple as +1 gold and +1 gold per adjacent farm. But I'm at least looking forward to play as them to see how they do.

 

[tedhebert]

The problem with this kind of Civs is they require out of the box strategy and compared with straightforward Civs like Korea may seem weak. People are lazy with thinking. If they have a good strategy they will stick to their well known and verified path. If something doesn't fit it - it is easy to be judged as a weaker. The big question here is if Maya's potential is a thing. That's why it is so hard to judge it. I would love it if the Maya will be a Civ which is much harder to play but if handled in a proper way much more rewarding and better than Korea. And we should play not just one but a few games to say if it's true.

That's exactly why I'm convinced that the 6 tiles limit is too low; There will be NO strategy to this civ. AT ALL. you will plump your capital with a huge lack of information about surroundings, then be OBLIGATED to plop down your next cities in very specific tiles, which will most likely be very sub-par for a city placement. The 6 tiles limit gives absolutely NO leeway into this, unless you accept to lower the number of max cities that can be put within 6 tiles, or you accept the -15% malus.

well 13 cities is never going to happen in real game play anyhow.

That's right. The possibilities that 1) there will be not a single mountain in a spot where you HAVE to put a city and 2) you have no neighboring civ in a 360 degree angle to eat up some of your space with a little forward settling is next to nil. OF course, for the second point, you WILL have war bonuses that should allow you to take that/those city(ies), but it will almost certainly be placed at a wrong place. You'll either have to live with it or raze and rebuild

All that being said, I really love the idea behind the civ makeup, and I think it's a fun way to build them, but this is too crippling... Still can't wait to play them tough ;-0

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Maya will be considerably stronger if they make population and large cities more valuable and that is something that civilization VI have been criticized for. Stuff like farms and neighbourhoods are considered pretty bad right now.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

It's pretty uncommon to have no mountains, fissures or reefs.

As someone who mains Arabia, I can assure you, it is not at all uncommon.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

The cap doesn't start with 2 housing. It starts with 3, since the palace gives you +1 housing as well. Therefore, your cap will reach 2 pop just like any civ since it starts with 3 housing. The palace also gives you +2 production. If you settle a 2F+2P tile and your 1 pop works another 2F+2P tile, the cap has 6P. Once it gets to 2 pop, you'll have 8P if you can work another 2F+2P tile. So your Mayan civ will be just like any other civ for the first 8-10 turns. The first builder is 50P. This means at 2 pop you can crank out your first builder in 9 turns. You'll have to do this earlier than usual, but it's not that bad. The first builder can be used to build two more farms, one in your second and one in your third city. This means these cities start with 3.5 housing instead of 2, so they can get to pop 2 w/o any penalty as well. So now you work 3 farms, one in each of your first 3 cities. But these farms also give you 1G each, which in actuality is 1G in your cap and 2.2G in the other cities since you have the +10% bonus. These 3.2G per turn are even better than the first your trader, which is 3G when sent to a city state. Once you get to Craftsmanship, with Ilkum your builders will be 30% cheaper, so cranking a few more builders will be even quicker. Furthermore, you have access to granaries at Pottery... so again, +2 housing. Fixing the housing problem is not that difficult. Maya will have a good gold economy with their 1.1 G from each farm so in your 4th city you'll likely be buying the granary right at the start.

You will not work your farms in first turns because 1 gold is less worthy than production in those turns. All you need is one/two farms for housing. If you are lucky you will get an irrigation eureka. If not you can go to Archery instead, and than Pottery - Irrigation, Writing. And then you will probably need other farms/granaries/aqueducts when you reach pop 5. The downside I see in the first turn is that you must build a worker instead of a scout first. And then you will need another and another and another...This is the main price of Mayan start. Ilkum from Selfdom will be a must-have policy.
as for -15% vs. 10% boost (in let's say 7 cities), it has to be tested. On paper, it looks ok. Your global income will remain on top even if you have 10 cities. Besides much of your Science production will take place in your first cities. I play small maps so 10 cities are enough to turtle and snowball. Larger maps can be more problematic. Does it mean I say, omg Maya will be OP? Hell, no! It may not work as well. But if you right from the start assume it's not gonna work it will not work for sure

 

[yung.carl.jung]

They’re going to have an exceptionally easy time hitting the +3 for rationalism and the 10 pop, so even with the -15% in colonies they’re going to wreck shop in the renaissance. Plantation luxuries are more spread out than mountains, so they have great settling options. Spamming farms that give gold is going to be bananas. For anyone else, spamming farms has no benefit after hitting pop 10. The Maya can use it to roll in gold. And the housing bonus of 1.5 each is nuts. They could hit 50 in a city if they can keep amenities met.

those are some good points. I really think Maya could go from "Georgia but with better Campus and Archer" to "absolutely OP" if Firaxis changed farms and food/housing in general. Funny how Maya were one of the few ICS Civs in Civ 5, which favored tall play, but are one of the few tall civs in Civ 6, which favors wide play.

The more I look at this, the more I think the Mayans could literally be worse than a blank civ.

called it

It’s actually better to spawn in jungle as Maya because bananas and cocoa at everywhere, each being worth double what a mountain is to anyone else. They’re looking at +6 campuses being a pretty regular thing. Even if you can only build an observatory between two plantations you can easily turn that into a +5 if you build two farms. An open flatland campus to them is a +3. Any other civ would be ruined by open flat terrain.

The gold isn’t game changing, but it’s something that can be spammed in every city, and spammed early. It’s not hard to see each city having farms worth an extra trade route in the early game.

I definitely see a viable argument that Maya could potentially get better adjacency for their Campus than vanilla Civs. I think that's a pretty strong bonus in itself.

I still think going wide is the best strategy in Civ, and 15-20 city empires will pretty much always significantly outperform 6 city empires. Even with Georgia you can probably win a SV below 200 on a mediocre map and a CV even earlier.

But maybe the pentalty isn't actually that bad and you'll still just settle/conquer your 20 cities with Maya and shrug it off. I just wonder why the pentalty needs to exist at all, really. Don't think they would have been too overpowered without it.

The first builder can be used to build two more farms, one in your second and one in your third city.

just nitpicking, but if you use that first builder to improve one tile in your first three cities, you are never getting the Craftsmanship Inspiration in time, unless you build another builder, but then you're building 2 settlers.

 

[kb27787]

Bit lost with this one.

They WANT to work bananas because the plantation is going to give major campus adjacency. And with one builder, they have more housing than a Civ on rivers (as well as 3 gpt)

Also, the UU is 2 strength off a Crossbowman when it’s defending her territory. I literally cannot think of a safer Civ from assault in the ancient era, save Nubia herself, and that’s only because she can produce more.

(Obligatory reminder than a unit or district being worse than one other Civs unit or district =/= bad)

No, I mean the farm itself (which you used precious charges to get) is not a good tile to work. In other words, with your first 3 charges you want to improve the first 3 tiles the city is immediately going to work as it grows (i.e. I would rather spend my charges on horses or sheep rather than an empty flatland farm for 3f1g or 2f1p1g). If you work the unimproved hill banana for example, then why waste a charge on farming a blank grassland tile when it's not a tile you're not going to work until your city grows to size 6 or so? (i.e. there are 5 other unimproved tiles around that are better than that farm, but thanks to housing issues, you kinda have to).

With one builder, assuming you make 3 flatland farms with your precious first builder (which is a disaster for production...) you get +4.5 housing, but I'm working other tiles which are worth working more... Let's say I have a generic vanilla civ with the exact same starting location, I get 3 from freshwater by default, then I improve one each of horse, sheep,and fur tiles. I'm still at 3+1.5 = 4.5 housing but my 3 pop city is outproducing its Mayan counterpart by 2 production and 2 gold. And on top of that, I got horses and furs to sell or gift to befriend AI early...

Also consider the early game tech path.... archery lies beyond animal husbandry... whereas irrigation is on a completely different path. The civ ability encourages you to go the pottery route instead, but If you don't beeline animal husbandry, you risk getting wiped... If you want to abuse their early science then you need to research writing ASAP as soon as irrigation is done (and on deity, I would think you are pretty much dead with just slingers at this point). Also, if you plan to do early war, being pretty much forced to start with a builder or face housing issues is terrible when you want to get that first slinger out and go hunt for that archery eureka ASAP! (which is why I compare them to Mali... but Mali at least gets that extra food and faith from the start whereas she has NEGATIVES coming straight out of the gate which do not get compensated for until ~20-30 turns later)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

those are some good points. I really think Maya could go from "Georgia but with better Campus and Archer" to "absolutely OP" if Firaxis changed farms and food/housing in general. Funny how Maya were one of the few ICS Civs in Civ 5, which favored tall play, but are one of the few tall civs in Civ 6, which favors wide play.

It is quite resonable to expect buffs to large cities, it have been asked for about the whole existance of civilization VI.

 

[IvoryPavane]

No, I mean the farm itself (which you used precious charges to get) is not a good tile to work. In other words, with your first 3 charges you want to improve the first 3 tiles the city is immediately going to work as it grows (i.e. I would rather spend my charges on horses or sheep rather than an empty flatland farm for 3f1g or 2f1p1g). If you work the unimproved hill banana for example, then why waste a charge on farming a blank grassland tile when it's not a tile you're not going to work until your city grows to size 6 or so? (i.e. there are 5 other unimproved tiles around that are better than that farm, but thanks to housing issues, you kinda have to).

With one builder, assuming you make 3 flatland farms with your precious first builder (which is a disaster for production...) you get +4.5 housing, but I'm working other tiles which are worth working more... Let's say I have a generic vanilla civ with the exact same starting location, I get 3 from freshwater by default, then I improve one each of horse, sheep,and fur tiles. I'm still at 3+1.5 = 4.5 housing but my 3 pop city is outproducing its Mayan counterpart by 2 production and 2 gold. And on top of that, I got horses and furs to sell or gift to befriend AI early...

Also consider the early game tech path.... archery lies beyond animal husbandry... whereas irrigation is on a completely different path. The civ ability encourages you to go the pottery route instead, but If you don't beeline animal husbandry, you risk getting wiped... If you want to abuse their early science then you need to research writing ASAP as soon as irrigation is done (and on deity, I would think you are pretty much dead with just slingers at this point). Also, if you plan to do early war, being pretty much forced to start with a builder or face housing issues is terrible when you want to get that first slinger out and go hunt for that archery eureka ASAP! (which is why I compare them to Mali... but Mali at least gets that extra food and faith from the start whereas she has NEGATIVES coming straight out of the gate which do not get compensated for until ~20-30 turns later)

But you don’t have to work the farm tiles you have made, they just need to exist to get the extra housing. So at worst, Maya has to make a builder instead of a monument, and ends up 2 culture behind.

Im not saying that very start won’t be challenging, but my counterpoint is that once you get your second city and an observatory online, you start to ramp very quickly.

Maybe the easiest way to say it is that the Maya probably does have a disadvantage if you play the game exactly as you would 90% of the other Civs, but if you adapt your play style and can survive the first 30 turns, then you are in for some good times

 

[Casworon]

I see lots of comparisons to Korea.

I agree Korea seem more powerful in science. But the Maya are going to be getting +10% to all yields in their central cities.

So while Korea will have a Science advantage. Maya has one over Korea in other areas and is more balanced.

Though with how victory in Civ VI comes from min/maxing thoughrally in one area where that will place them on tier lists remains to be seen.

A closer comparison would be Scotland who get a 10% bonus to their cities for production and science when they are ecstatic. But this is only two yields being boosted and is dependent on amenities.

I think Mayas bonuses might be deceptively powerful when played even though they might not seem that impressive at first glance

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

We have civs like Rome and Greece under Pericles who are probably even stronger than Korea due to their strong Culture game to get an idea.

 

[IvoryPavane]

And I think the concepts of tier lists are flawed because (a someone who fully understands a Civ will always outperform someone who doesn’t, regardless of the Civ and (b there are many variables in the game so a tier list can only really benchmark against the most of generic of starts and maps.

And I play a lot of multiplayer and I can tell you I’ve been thoroughly thrashed by good Tamars a few times. A true Queen

 

[kb27787]

But you don’t have to work the farm tiles you have made, they just need to exist to get the extra housing. So at worst, Maya has to make a builder instead of a monument, and ends up 2 culture behind.

Im not saying that very start won’t be challenging, but my counterpoint is that once you get your second city and an observatory online, you start to ramp very quickly.

Maybe the easiest way to say it is that the Maya probably does have a disadvantage if you play the game exactly as you would 90% of the other Civs, but if you adapt your play style and can survive the first 30 turns, then you are in for some good times

As I said earlier, if you don't work the farm tiles you made, you are more than just that monument behind... you are 3 production or 3 food, or 6 gold or any partial combination (3 tile improvements) behind in the worst cases! If you compare this to Inca (who also will start with builder, but unlike Maya, they actually work the terrace farm tiles that they produce--and those are generally tiles with 5-7+ total yields or even more!), the difference is just disgusting! (Wonder what the balance team is thinking!)...

Yes, survive 30 turns or so... which is why I suggested they at least give civ capitals walls at the start...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The main reason why people say that Georgia is bad is because everyone started to say that Georgia is bad.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

I see lots of comparisons to Korea.

I agree Korea seem more powerful in science. But the Maya are going to be getting +10% to all yields in their central cities.

So while Korea will have a Science advantage. Maya has one over Korea in other areas and is more balanced.

Though with how victory in Civ VI comes from min/maxing thoughrally in one area where that will place them on tier lists remains to be seen

The biggest Korean advantage is 4 science flat only if you have a hill to build your Seowon. It is consistent as hell and not too hard to handle. In effect, it is strong and very easy to play civ. In a BGG Scale Complexity Rating it would be 2/5 on Deity 1/5 on King (considering Civ difficulty OFC it's not a Ticket to Ride) Greece/Athens is very similar.