Montezuma's UA - scaling?

[AfterShafter]

Hey all,

I actually posted this as a question in the official Civ V issues thread quite a while ago, but didn't get any feedback, so I'm just creating a quick thread that I know may well be resolved in no time flat. I also didn't see it mentioned in the list of issues on the first page of that thread.

Does Montezuma's unique ability to get culture for kills not scale with speed settings? I'm guessing it must not because I'm playing on Marathon and in the early game I'm getting absolutely paltry amounts of culture - 3 or 4. Pretty much after your first policy or two, numbers in this range are absolutely paltry. I usually play France and, barring constant warfare, and even then, Napoleon's ability will effectively produce at the bare minimum several times the culture of a constantly warring Monty.

I haven't played more than 100 or so turns with Monty (on Marathon, so that's still very early) so I may be totally off base, but... I was so underwhelmed by the pittance of culture I was getting for working my buns off killing things that I didn't really want to continue on with him all that much.

So, does anyone else think this is an issue, and the ability needs a buff? Am I just doing it wrong? Does the culture awarded come as a % of social policy cost, perhaps? In a game where armies are supposed to be relatively small, this ability seems like it would need more oomph per kill.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

It definitely scales by era, or rather by unit era, but game speed? hrm, if it isn't that seems like a pretty big issue/bug, since gold gained from barbarian games (for Germany) and naval units (for the Ottomans) scales with game speed.

As for their cultural bonus, their unique building is particularly useful, given the right circumstances and can generate pretty insane levels of growth -- it's only going to get stronger with the new patch (when Maritime city states are nerfed and growth beyond 12, or whichever, is reduced).

 

[AfterShafter]

Yeah, I agree, their UB is pretty good. Their UU isn't spectacular, but maybe it's an acquired taste like the Jag in Civ IV (which was actually a powerhouse once you got out of the "it fills the role of the swordsman" mindset).

But yeah, I don't know how much culture it gives you on standard and all that, but it was giving 3 or 4 culture on marathon in the early game. Being a France player, as far as culture giving abilities go, I'd have to kill a unit every two turns to keep up with France's cultural output from one city from their bonus. Seeing as you don't kill units even close to one every second turn, it's a neat idea that results in a tiny fraction of the actual net gains of the more direct French bonus.

 

[glaivemaster]

On standard speed, an archer or a trireme will give you 2 culture, and a warrior (and I think spearman) will provide 3 culture. Not sure what you get beyond that.

To be honest, even in standard speed games it seems like a fairly small amount, but add up all the culture you can accrue over the number of turns (and there are more turns in a marathon gae admittedly, though I'm not sure about numbers of units) and it does add up to a fair amount if you use it properly

 

[Catastrophe90]

IIRC the UA gives you an amount of Culture equal to half the Strength of the killed unit. So:

6 Strength Warrior = 3 Culture
4 Strength Archer = 2 Culture
18 Strength Longswordsman = 9 Culture

I don't remember if it rounds up or down though...

 

[alpaca]

Early culture is weak. Once you slap down a citadel and let the AI attack a strongly upgraded unit in there with 3 units every turn, that's when you start to roll in real culture. Nappy's ability is obviously stronger, but it ends with Industrial while Monty's ability only really starts becoming good in the late game. Overall, I still don't think that makes for a good UA but it's very flavourful.

 

[AfterShafter]

Interesting - didn't realize that was how the number was worked out. Thanks Catastrophe.

Now, I'm curious - how do you guys feel those numbers work? It still seems like the numbers are pretty low. Even at constant war, I get the feeling that even engaging in warfare very frequently you'd probably fall hugely behind Napoleon's constant culture gain throughout the course of the game, and that culture wouldn't even allow for city expansion like Napoleon's. I realize the abilities aren't necessarily meant to be directly compared, but if one is almost assuredly going to provide substantially less culture, that might be grounds for a bit of rebalancing.

And Alpaca, I don't think it's *terrible* right now and, frankly, I love the idea, but... It seems like it wouldn't be a tough one to make a good UA as well. It's not like Monty's UB and UU are game breaking, so, wouldn't hurt if his UA got a bit of a buff.

But granted, my experience with it is limited... I just wonder if the general consensus is in line with my initial idea - that it's very weak compared to the other major culture producing UA.

 

[alpaca]

Yeah but then again the Ottoman ability is quite weak compared to almost every other UA. They're not meant to be equally strong, I think.

I doubt it would become overpowered if it was buffed to one point per strength and it certainly should yield more on lower gamespeeds because your culture per turn is higher than unit killing by comparison. But then again if you don't play standard size or speed you have to expect unbalanced gameplay, there are just too many options to realistically test and it easily happens that you forget something.

 

[Roghar]

I’ve been playing aztecs for the past few days, in my current game am getting 11 culture per kill against riflemen, assume it goes up even further for modern units. You never get a huge amount of culture but it’s a nice bonus, especially if you aren’t producing a lot of culture otherwise. It won’t win you a culture victory but it’s worth a few policies over a game if you’re warring a lot.

The UU is great, if you can get them to survive through many upgrades. The healing really improves the survivability of the unit and lets you maintain attacks for longer. I took out the Iriquois and most of Arabia with two jaguars upgraded to longswordsmen. Sadly I lost one in a war with america, only one left of my original units

 

[AfterShafter]

The UU is great, if you can get them to survive through many upgrades. The healing really improves the survivability of the unit and lets you maintain attacks for longer. I took out the Iriquois and most of Arabia with two jaguars upgraded to longswordsmen. Sadly I lost one in a war with america, only one left of my original units

Whoa, they keep that health gain ability after they upgrade? Ooohh... I like it.

 

[Babri]

Actually Aztec UA is pretty weak. They need to make it more useful. Maybe culture=strength*2 or better.

 

[Slowpoke]

I've doubled it, but.. france is just so much better :O Unless you're killing 2 units a turn (good luck killing 1 a turn), even a france nerfed to half UA ability beats aztecs. Aztec UA only really works well in an always war game, and not even that in vanila. They would work on a vanilla OCC always war, though, due to france getting less culture and aztecs getting a killer building for OCC

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

I have a personal mod where I just make little tweaks as I see fit now and again, and one of the changes I made was yes, to double the culture gained by Montezuma's kills. Aztecs are maybe my favorite Civ for a number of reasons, so I might be biased though.

 

[AfterShafter]

Well Firaxis, you've got a patch coming up... Aztec UA needs more beef - make it so!

 

[Slowpoke]

Considering how easy it is, and a modest 75% boost would be pretty conservative, I think we'll see it soon

 

[Varanid]

considering the size of armies now (unless you're playing on the higher 2 difficulty levels) it's a fairly weak UA. I only kill 10-12 units to conquer a civ, then getting 1/2 thier strength in culture won't do much. If they're fielding a fairly typical helicopter/mech infantry army it's 25/kill in the modern or future eras, it'll be 250 culture in a time when your policies are in the thousands. and if they're doing the infantry/arty or riflemen/cannon armies for those eras, it's still only going to be like 100 or so culture.

 

[alpaca]

Maybe for the Aztecs it makes sense to get culture for each attack rather than each kill? After all, attacking represents casualties/captives.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I like the ability. With France, to get the most of the ability, you need to REX. Once your ability expires, that REXing hurts you because you have too many cities. With the Aztecs, you can have a small empire (<5 cities) and get huge culture boosts to supplement a culture victory. Plus, it's fun.

 

[Bezurn]

Comparing the Aztec's UA to France's will have France winning pretty easily. I think France's UA should be reduced to 1 cpt honestly, and maybe not obsolete to compensate.

But the Aztec UB is very nice if you can build a lot of them. I miss the Civ 4 granaries and these are good replacements for the feeling. All France has in this category is another UU which you may not need to use depending on how the game plays out.

 

[manarod]

I played with Monty in a marathon game and i think that there are 2 problems with his ability. First is that the ai doesn't build many units.
The second is that in marathon there isn't a greater number of unit over standard. In civ4 in marathon is possible to have a city producing a unit for turn, in civ5 that's impossible so you have the same amount of unit but a greater number of culture for policy