[NFP] Maya First Look

[Loerwyn]

At one point in my game (the Prince/Warlord (I forgot) one where I won a sci victory) I was pulling in 1250 science per turn on standard.

I really think the Mayans are going to get nerfed.

 

[PhilBowles]

A lot of people are going with Pingala as the first governor - I did the same, and usually do with choppable feature-low starts anyway, but it's possible that Liang is preferable. Being able to get 4-use builders early seems pretty significant for the Maya.

The Maya may also want to go wide with governors and use Audience Chamber - usually you'll get the Plaza too late for the Ancestral Hall anyway, and getting +3 Housing in cities with a governor (which ultimately can be most of them) is a decent early boost (a close-knit tall empire isn't going to be hurt significantly by the negative loyalty). So taking Liang early, maybe promoting him once for the cheap districts, and then getting Pingala for the second city could be a good route.

i'll say this for the Maya design: it might actually make some Civ VI decision-making strategically relevant rather than just roleplaying.

 

[Leucarum]

I agree that Liang is pretty key for Maya. Rather than having an ancestral hall, I found I preferred the audience chamber and to rotate Liang to whichever city was currently dedicated to pumping out builders.

Also, I really find it's worth prioritizing pumping out slingers as Hul'Che are pretty costly, and with the +5 boost they are better able to hold their own vs barbs than usual anyway...

 

[Kwami]

if you only end up pandering to that audience they'll never learn to pronounce anything out of their comfort zone anyway. I think this is such a non-argument. also, if a name is hard to pronounce, people usually just come up with a nickname in not too long 'a time.

personally I don't even dislike lady six sky, I think it is quite nice phonetically. it is however extremely arbitrary to translate one leaders name into english while keeping almost all the others as they were.

also, I just dislike the "dumbing down" stuff for American audiences in general. not just in relation to civ.

Oh, please. We translate names all the time to make them easier and more comfortable. And it's not just for Americans because Americans are dumb or some other such nonsense.

Where's the outcry over Peter the Great instead of Pyotr? Why isn't Catherine de Medici called Caterina de Medici or Catherine de Médicis? And Phillip II should be Felipe II, right? Should we rename Eleanor to Aliénor? Nobody seemed to care about any of those name changes, none of which was done to please "dumb Americans".

Lady Six Sky is the name that scholars and historians use when writing about her. That's enough for me. You're free to change your own local files if you insist on using a reconstructed Mayan name that probably doesn't sound quite right anyway.

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As for the Mayans, I tried a test game last night and it went OK. I definitely had great adjacency bonuses on the Observatories, but I did have to keep watching housing in each city. I found myself spending a lot of Gold on Builders and Granaries just to stay afloat. That's not too different from my usual play style, though. I was somewhat lucky in my game because I was able to settle my third city near Paititi, I found a relic in an early tribal village, my neighbors were all friendly for some reason, and I had enough space around my capital to settle six more decent cities with the bonus.

I didn't bother to finish that game (too easy!), but I'll probably play another one this weekend and report back if it's interesting.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

OYou're free to change your own local files if you insist on using a reconstructed Mayan name that probably doesn't sound quite right anyway.
.

you didn't even read my post, did you? just went off on a ramble

 

[tedhebert]

Started my first game yesterday night, Maya, Huge, continent, immortal.

As I feared whan I saw the layout of the civ, after putting down my capital then scouting, I realized I had only 4 tiles available north and east of my capital ;-( could have restarted, but I don't like doing so. So that put my max +10% cities to 8, plus the capital, so 9 cities, and 2 of them ar in tundra ;-( What's even more annoying is that I was that I,m sheltered by a mountain range from my ennemies, and that I would have all the space I needed to the west if I had known to put my capital 4-5 tiles to the west. I still feel the placement of the capital on the map is WAY too important to be forced to make it without having knowledge of your surrounding, but there's also no possible way you can wait to put down your capital. Anyways.

All that being said, I'm now at turn 125, all my cities are installed (stole one from Spain since he had the nerves to forward settle my on my ground ). Honestly the UU archer is VERY strong. I had no problem whatsoever dealing with Phillip or with the hordes of barbs coming my way. And the fact that there were a LOT of them is good in the end, because they're now nicely promoted.

the fact that I was bordered by mountains west and a line of CS south makes it pretty nicely sheltered, and that is perfect since this is not a warmonging civ. I'm now about to find out how possible it's going to be to make all those cities into good, productive ones.

A few things I've noticed that I hadn't really understood from the theory of the civ:

- The Observatory bonus for adj to plantations is just that: TO PLANTATIONs. The tiles have to be worked into plantations for the +2 to kick in. Probably should have been obvious, but actually took me a while to figure out why the bonuses weren't appearing ;-)

- For the first time in my life, I chose REYNA as my first governor with 2 promotions. I had 4 wooded tiles around my capital, and I'm not much into chopping, so I figured the +8 gold would come in handy. So far, it has really been benificial, and not having magnus with 2 promotions to handle the -1 to pop for each settler didn't really hurt since it just allowed me to delay going for much more housing, so it stuck pretty much at 7 while I was produciong all my settlers

- I DID wait for Ancestral hall to get working on my settlers. I don't usually wait for it because I feel it slows me down too much, but with LSS it CAN wait because if you get forward settled, you WILL easily take it back anyways because of the UU. The bonus builders are REALLY a must and a godsend for her. Of course, if you really want to min/max, then you might not want to wait... it slows you down quite a lot

- I usually play at disaster setting 2. Wanting to test apocaypse mode, I,m now playing at level 4 by default. MAN, they just keep on coming. I've already lost 3 units to bilzzards and tornados and even floods. Not sure I like all that, and expecting actual apocalypse in the end game will probably annoy me more than anything, but I will mention that the disasters have cost my ennemies and the surrounding barbabrians at least as many units than me, if not more. So in the end, it evens out

That's it for now. Sorry for the long-winded post, I know I've been fairly negative of Maya in my recent posts, so I felt I should let you guys know that even if what I feared has shown itself to be pretty much true (altough 1 game might not be a fair sample), I'm still enjoying it immensly ;-)


EDIT: Oh, and yeah, forgot. AQUEDUCTS... +4 housing. They're really useful and you should plan for them in your city planning

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I am playing a MP game with a friend tonight, Apocalypse Mode and we agreed to try the two new civs. Flipped a coin and he got GC - I'm toast, aren't I?

 

[Kwami]

I am playing a MP game with a friend tonight, Apocalypse Mode and we agreed to try the two new civs. Flipped a coin and he got GC - I'm toast, aren't I?

Why? Just turtle up with your Hul'che and smash his units as they come to you. The Hul'che are very, very strong on the defense. Your friend will find the other players and city states much easier targets. While he's busy over there, you can tech up.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Why? Just turtle up with your Hul'che and smash his units as they come to you. The Hul'che are very, very strong on the defense. Your friend will find the other players and city states much easier targets. While he's busy over there, you can tech up.

It will be an interesting test of whether a tall civ with only 6-7 cities can really and truly compete with an all conquering wide civ with 20+ cities...

 

[Kwami]

You should probably make more than 6-7 cities, even with Maya!

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

You should probably make more than 6-7 cities, even with Maya!

Probably but I will see what I can do whilst sticking to the 6 tile radius. This is the sort of research the world needs right now. For science!

 

[DWilson]

Just prep several of your UU and turtle, you should be able to win the military production wars.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Just prep several of your UU and turtle, you should be able to win the military production wars.

But what if I don't have any turtles?

Seriously, I see it mentioned a lot but I don't really know what turtle means. Noob!

 

[tedhebert]

But what if I don't have any turtles?

Seriously, I see it mentioned a lot but I don't really know what turtle means. Noob!

It means go on total defensive ;-)

 

[bengalryan9]

But what if I don't have any turtles?

Seriously, I see it mentioned a lot but I don't really know what turtle means. Noob!

If you are "turtling" you are basically pulling into your shell and protecting yourself.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

You should probably make more than 6-7 cities, even with Maya!

I have been giving it more thought and considering that your later cities will be worse than your core cities anyway, maybe that malus for their yields isn't actually very impactful. you may be able to ignore it and be fine, because the bonus for your core cities is more meaningful than the malus for your satellites!

 

[DWilson]

But what if I don't have any turtles?

Seriously, I see it mentioned a lot but I don't really know what turtle means. Noob!

Ahh, I see. Turtling means huddle up, and build a solid defense (usually alongside relatively slow expansion and tall city building). So, as the Maya you get the bonus combat strength around your core and an early powerful archer UU, which should lend towards a very formidable defense.

Depending on the aggressiveness of your friend, you may or may not also want to prioritize walls.

The key of the concept is that turtles are slow and steady! Usually they develop more thorough and extensive infrastructure, and are often more advanced scientifically. Korea is another good turtle civ.

 

[PhilBowles]

- I DID wait for Ancestral hall to get working on my settlers. I don't usually wait for it because I feel it slows me down too much, but with LSS it CAN wait because if you get forward settled, you WILL easily take it back anyways because of the UU. The bonus builders are REALLY a must and a godsend for her. Of course, if you really want to min/max, then you might not want to wait... it slows you down quite a lot

Yes, that was my take. I wanted to get the cities out earlier than I usually would (and hadn't thought about using the Hui'che offensively as I was in the mindset that I don't want to conquer early - or build many non-Settler/Builder units before I'm established) with the Maya. I normally expand fairly slowly so the Ancestral Hall can still be useful, but the way I expanded and the priority I assigned to it meant that I couldn't get the Hall out before at least my fourth city (of six available sites without conquest).

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Thanks all for the turtling suggestions. Rest assured I will think turtle, and try not to be one of those baby turtles that never makes it off the beach.

 

[Zaarin]

It is very common to translate country/civs names. Not so much with given names; actually, it is quite rare

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.