[NFP] Maya First Look

[Morningcalm]

Then maybe stop replying every single time he takes a breath? It's extremely irritating to see you repeat yourself for 2 pages straight.

I'm so sorry you find my opinion irritating!

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I think Kwami has it right, we don't always use the original names like "Pyotr" instead of "Peter" for example, and there is no outcry over such. Such name usage is not simply a dumbed down rendition, it's for practical reasons. Translation teams and localization teams are free to do what they like, and your issue, Danthor, seems to be with the localization team for your version of the game, not with Firaxis' use of Lady Six Sky at large in the English version.

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@Everyone else not having issues with the choice of name for Lady Six Sky, what build orders have you been using for the Maya? On Deity it seems too easy to be overrun by barbarians, but those workers do seem critical early on regardless. I often go for the pantheon belief that provides a free worker (free settler is good, but riskier, and often taken by the AI on Deity it seems).

 

[Loerwyn]

@Everyone else not having issues with the choice of name for Lady Six Sky, what build orders have you been using for the Maya? On Deity it seems too easy to be overrun by barbarians, but those workers do seem critical early on regardless. I often go for the pantheon belief that provides a free worker (free settler is good, but riskier, and often taken by the AI on Deity it seems).

I stuck with my usual Scout first, but this was my first game with the Maya. I find scouts invaluable, plus goody huts seem much more frequent so it worked out okay. I managed to get the settler belief too, but the worker one would be good too.

 

[Morningcalm]

I stuck with my usual Scout first, but this was my first game with the Maya. I find scouts invaluable, plus goody huts seem much more frequent so it worked out okay. I managed to get the settler belief too, but the worker one would be good too.

Ah nice. What difficulty did you play on? I guess scouts are useful even on Deity for the goodie huts but I got nervous and built multiple slingers and sent them to find local barbarians instead. In my recent game (Standard Deity Pangaea) I only found one goodie hut.

 

[PhilBowles]

This is only true of the last century or so. Prior to that it was considered quite normal to be called John in London and Jean in Paris and Johann in Frankfurt and Ivan in St. Petersburg.

It's still a practice adopted by some recent immigrants, for example a Czech friend of mine whose name is Pavel but who uses Paul since he's been resident in England.

I stuck with my usual Scout first, but this was my first game with the Maya. I find scouts invaluable, plus goody huts seem much more frequent so it worked out okay. I managed to get the settler belief too, but the worker one would be good too.

That's a good idea - I don't know how much it set you back going for an early pantheon, though (I neglected it altogether - when I eventually spawned one I went for Divine Spark since I have Observatories in every city).

I usually get one scout - era score from huts and Natural Wonders is helpful - but I don't prioritise it. The AI doesn't explore very well, and I don't usually need one to plan early settlement.

Ah nice. What difficulty did you play on? I guess scouts are useful even on Deity for the goodie huts but I got nervous and built multiple slingers and sent them to find local barbarians instead. In my recent game (Standard Deity Pangaea) I only found one goodie hut.

I usually start with a slinger and then move onto builders or a scout as seems appropriate, unless barbarians find me early. If I need a second slinger I can usually buy one by the time I'm attacked, and the starting warrior + slinger deals with barb camps that haven't been activated.

The downside is that it's hard to transition to aggression without more units than that if opportunities present themselves - even much later in my game I have a bottleneck caused by a shortage of ranged units that's making it slow for me to move on Arabia even though I've destroyed their army. It was a bloodier fight than I expected and I lost two of my three ranged units. I also wasn't in a position to declare war and attack myself when Hattin lost half its health to a volcanic eruption.

 

[Loerwyn]

Ah nice. What difficulty did you play on? I guess scouts are useful even on Deity for the goodie huts but I got nervous and built multiple slingers and sent them to find local barbarians instead. In my recent game (Standard Deity Pangaea) I only found one goodie hut.

Third, I think. Warlord? I'd need to load up to double check but it was either Warlord or Prince

 

[tedhebert]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ? I find that the light blue color, while very nice looking, does not seem to allow for enough shading when units have already acted or are fortified... the 'greyed out' mode looks too much like the normal mode for the units.

It's really not all that big of a problem, but was wondering if I was the only one a little annoyed by this ?

 

[PhilBowles]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ? I find that the light blue color, while very nice looking, does not seem to allow for enough shading when units have already acted or are fortified... the 'greyed out' mode looks too much like the normal mode for the units.

It's really not all that big of a problem, but was wondering if I was the only one a little annoyed by this ?

I haven't really registered any more difficult than usual - I think this is a problem with Civ VI visuals in general, because it comes up with a lot of civs (Nubia and Germany, for instance). I'm liking the colour scheme.

 

[GenyaArikado]

*english speaking* scholars you mean. There lies the handicap

English is basically the Lingua Franca of the world, deal with it

 

[Kwami]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ? I find that the light blue color, while very nice looking, does not seem to allow for enough shading when units have already acted or are fortified... the 'greyed out' mode looks too much like the normal mode for the units.

It's really not all that big of a problem, but was wondering if I was the only one a little annoyed by this ?

I went for the second jersey option. I like having the lighter color for the icon and the darker color for the background.

 

[Zaarin]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ?

Maya blue was a thematic choice, but yeah, I'm not a huge fan. Like @Kwami , I went for the flipped jersey. Looks much nicer.

 

[tedhebert]

I went for the second jersey option. I like having the lighter color for the icon and the darker color for the background.

ok I'll try and remeber that if I ever play them again ;-) Of course I knew we can change jersey, it's just that I had no idea it would annoy me with this one...

I don't believe we can change jersey DURING the game, right ?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ? I find that the light blue color, while very nice looking, does not seem to allow for enough shading when units have already acted or are fortified... the 'greyed out' mode looks too much like the normal mode for the units.

It's really not all that big of a problem, but was wondering if I was the only one a little annoyed by this ?

I'm not annoyed by it with the light blue primary with green.
I change the primary jerseys of Civs anyway in the files usually and actually did the inverse for Gran Colombia since the yellow on dark blue is what I was using for Macedon.

 

[Kimiimaro]

Maya blue was a thematic choice, but yeah, I'm not a huge fan. Like @Kwami , I went for the flipped jersey. Looks much nicer.

I do not mind original jerseys much, though I started a game as Egypt, and I really liked the purple on beige combination for some reason, so now I'm playing with these colours.

 

[Guynemer]

Maya blue was a thematic choice, but yeah, I'm not a huge fan. Like @Kwami , I went for the flipped jersey. Looks much nicer.

I went with the blue with the bronze-ish writing. Nice contrast.

 

[Morningcalm]

Third, I think. Warlord? I'd need to load up to double check but it was either Warlord or Prince

Nice! Would be curious to see which victory condition you pursued at that difficulty, and whether any of the AI came close to catching up with your Maya science and food yields throughout (even on Deity I found it was quite possible to catch up with the AI as long as you avoid an early war with an AI - the barbarians are trouble enough)

I usually start with a slinger and then move onto builders or a scout as seems appropriate, unless barbarians find me early. If I need a second slinger I can usually buy one by the time I'm attacked, and the starting warrior + slinger deals with barb camps that haven't been activated.

The downside is that it's hard to transition to aggression without more units than that if opportunities present themselves - even much later in my game I have a bottleneck caused by a shortage of ranged units that's making it slow for me to move on Arabia even though I've destroyed their army. It was a bloodier fight than I expected and I lost two of my three ranged units. I also wasn't in a position to declare war and attack myself when Hattin lost half its health to a volcanic eruption.

Agreed. I usually avoid early war unless I'm playing as Scythia or Nubia on Deity for example.

As the Maya in a Deity game I got wiped out by Montezuma of all people (he had eagle warriors and horsemen, and I had only three hul'che at that point, on the other side of my empire dealing with barbarians). But I reloaded and used a mountain pass to kill his units as they moved through. It was a reverse-Spartan moment. Couldn't save my friendly city-state allies though, and I have plans to move on Montezuma later to liberate them.

 

[PhilBowles]

As the Maya in a Deity game I got wiped out by Montezuma of all people (he had eagle warriors and horsemen, and I had only three hul'che at that point, on the other side of my empire dealing with barbarians). But I reloaded and used a mountain pass to kill his units as they moved through. It was a reverse-Spartan moment. Couldn't save my friendly city-state allies though, and I have plans to move on Montezuma later to liberate them.

The main issue I had was that the Arabs are technologically ahead of me and even my levied swordsmen don't match up well against Mamluks - which were also fast enough through hills to catch units I thought were safe. The AI did make my life easier with some pretty terrible play - it was good at sniping units, but avoided firing at my cities with crossbowmen and just sent Mamluks around pillaging trade or beating up levied swordsmen instead of attacking, while a Great General sat miles from any units doing not much. For some reason it did however suicide a spearman against fully-healthy, walled, garrisoned Tikal.

Also, they've finally fixed Repair Outer Defences so that it doesn't randomly vanish as an option.

 

[Morningcalm]

The main issue I had was that the Arabs are technologically ahead of me and even my levied swordsmen don't match up well against Mamluks - which were also fast enough through hills to catch units I thought were safe. The AI did make my life easier with some pretty terrible play - it was good at sniping units, but avoided firing at my cities with crossbowmen and just sent Mamluks around pillaging trade or beating up levied swordsmen instead of attacking, while a Great General sat miles from any units doing not much. For some reason it did however suicide a spearman against fully-healthy, walled, garrisoned Tikal.

Also, they've finally fixed Repair Outer Defences so that it doesn't randomly vanish as an option.

The AI generally still sucks at sieges yeah - in the case of Montezuma, he just sent his melee units headlong into my capital, which was undefended (unwisely) at the time. AI Mamluks can be scary indeed, though. All that healing.

I do wonder how Lady Six Sky does as an AI though - does she use hul'che to great effect (i.e. attacking cities with them too)?

 

[Casualty of war]

Anyone else dislikes the standard jersey color for LSS/Maya ? I find that the light blue color, while very nice looking, does not seem to allow for enough shading when units have already acted or are fortified... the 'greyed out' mode looks too much like the normal mode for the units.

It's really not all that big of a problem, but was wondering if I was the only one a little annoyed by this ?

Oh good, it wasn't just me.

This civ is is like Korea and Nubia had a baby. I forward settled and antagonized my neighbor, then annihilated them with Hyper-Archers when they declared. Now, capturing Mayan cities are going to provide some of the most miserable Campuses you've ever had.

I have never wanted to Coliseum-rush as badly as I do with this civ. Get my 6-8 cities in my empire's nexus and just wreck everyone. If it's a conquered city, a little yield penalty is no big deal.

The sad trombone of having Mohenjo-Daro suzerained is amusing.

 

[PhilBowles]

The AI generally still sucks at sieges yeah - in the case of Montezuma, he just sent his melee units headlong into my capital, which was undefended (unwisely) at the time. AI Mamluks can be scary indeed, though. All that healing.

I do wonder how Lady Six Sky does as an AI though - does she use hul'che to great effect (i.e. attacking cities with them too)?

This was particularly poor - the AI attacked with too few units (fewer than the usual 4+), lost one immediately (after it used one unit at either side of the city to besiege it) and then apparently was unable to adapt and just ran the other intended attackers round my territory or sat them where they were without attacking (including an almost-dead catapult that could have retreated to safety). It was after Tikal rather than the capital, so although the capital wasn't walled and at one point it had two crossbows and a Mamluk within range, it ignored it. Damaged units moved seemingly at random rather than in an effort to escape, and kept moving in range of my walls and Hui'che garrison. I don't know if some of the AI changes have hampered AI combat performance, as this is the first game I've played since the patch.

 

[Leucarum]

@Everyone else not having issues with the choice of name for Lady Six Sky, what build orders have you been using for the Maya? On Deity it seems too easy to be overrun by barbarians, but those workers do seem critical early on regardless. I often go for the pantheon belief that provides a free worker (free settler is good, but riskier, and often taken by the AI on Deity it seems).

I've actually ended up going slinger > builder > slinger > settler as Maya... And I'm not sure how insane that is... Builder first feels a little risky, plus slingers make decent enough scouts when you aren't being incentivized to scout particularly far afield. With the increased production cost and Maya's normally lower production I want as many as possible on the board before I research archery. And with +5 combat strength they're more useful vs barbarians than normal.