SammyKhalifa
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2003
- Messages
- 6,308
If you don't have plantations, your campuses are hardcapped at +3,
Hardcapped at +3.3.
If you don't have plantations, your campuses are hardcapped at +3,
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.
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.That was less of a suggestion and more my polite way of saying "please stop with the endless posts about leader animations"
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.
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.
well 13 cities is never going to happen in real game play anyhow.
It's pretty uncommon to have no mountains, fissures or reefs.
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.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.
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.
The more I look at this, the more I think the Mayans could literally be worse than a blank civ.
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.
The first builder can be used to build two more farms, one in your second and one in your third city.
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)
It is quite resonable to expect buffs to large cities, it have been asked for about the whole existance of civilization VI.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.
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)
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!)...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
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.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