[R&F] Netherlands First Look

[Victoria]

Thanks! It looks decent overall but apart from polders nothing sticks out to me as very powerful.

Major Adjacency for Campus!
+1 culture for external trade routes!
These are pretty cool things.

The De Zeven Provincien is a bit of a waste but does allow you to bombard modern cities with frigates (yes, they were ships of the line originally)... that answers my wonder about all the cannon. Its interesting navally because it may mean less frigates and more caravels.

I like this civ, not super strong but stong... science is really getting a change with all these science civs.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You're confusing polders with dykes. A polder is an area of dry land that used to be water, most commonly former (parts of) lakes that were drained using windmills to pump water out.

Pronunciation issues aside, I think this will be a fine representation of my home country that I will enjoy playing.

One way or another there probably shouldn't be ocean going vessels there.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Isn't that funny, on a side, that the Grote Rivieren ability applies only to campus, TS and IZ? I thought, for the Nutherlands, that a bonus to the CH too (a little better that the only +1 if on a river, not depending on the number of adjacent rivers) would be perfect and fitting.

 

[CivLuvah]

Just watched the video during my break.

Thoughts:
I kinda like this civ, especially the UI. Polders are fun, since it looks like the improvement goes into full bloom as you go through the eras, I think. Wilhelmina's UA seems a good way to influence other cities. I'm kind of disappointed that the civ UA isn't anything commerce related, but in a way it makes sense considering the geography of the Netherlands and how they depend on waterways and reclaiming land?

So we have rivers (Netherlands), coastline (Australia and Indonesia) and rainforest (Brazil) adjacency bonuses. What other geographical adjacency bonuses have I missed?

 

[Cerilis]

I can't, I'm working on my phone.

The "shipbuilding" Eureka is actually the one for Bronze Working in the previous scene. What looks like a district must be the Trireme with the bottom part of the encampment icon underneath. The third icon is an even worse amalgation of the star icon and the spearman. And then there is just the bottom line of the Iron icon.

It looks like Shipbuilding got kinda slightly diagonally shoved over Bronze Working, either a glitch of the video (more likely) or because they, for whatever reason, don't want to show Shipbuilding proper right now.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Just watched the video during my break.

Thoughts:
I kinda like this civ, especially the UI. Polders are fun, since it looks like the improvement goes into full bloom as you go through the eras, I think. Wilhelmina's UA seems a good way to influence other cities. I'm kind of disappointed that the civ UA isn't anything commerce related, but in a way it makes sense considering the geography of the Netherlands and how they depend on waterways and reclaiming land?

So we have rivers (Netherlands), coastline (Australia and Indonesia) and rainforest (Brazil) adjacency bonuses. What other geographical adjacency bonuses have I missed?

Well, *not yet* but you're setting the stage for Inca. I have guess that they (eventually) will let you build districts on mtn tiles.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The "shipbuilding" Eureka is actually the one for Bronze Working in the previous scene. What looks like a district must be the Trireme with the bottom part of the encampment icon underneath. The third icon is an even worse amalgation of the star icon and the spearman. And then there is just the bottom line of the Iron icon.

It looks like Shipbuilding got kinda slightly diagonally shoved over Bronze Working, either a glitch of the video (more likely) or because they, for whatever reason, don't want to show Shipbuilding proper right now.

Ah. Okay. egg on my face.

 

[shaglio]

If a foreign civ were to take over a Dutch city with polders (either through military, through trade, or through loyalty), they would probably disappear, furthering evidence that naval units can still travel on polders.

Maybe in the expac, they'll reverse that gameplay decision and allow Unique Improvements to remain after conquest

 

[Guandao]

Here's my comments on the uniques/abilities:

Grote Rivieren-building campuses, theater squares and industrial zones next to a river awards major adjacency bonuses, completing a Harbor grabs/culture bombs adjacent available tiles.

Another Civ ability involving adjacency to a natural feature , I guess the Netherlands won't do too well if their land is devoid of rivers. The culture bomb ability seems weaker than the other Civs with that, since it would be mainly grabbing water tiles. Ability seems to be reference to the Netherlands' many rivers. I was expecting something to do with trade, but oh wells.

Radio Oranje-your trade routes to your own cities provide +1 Identity per turn to the starting city, Trade Routes to foreign cities or from foreign cities provide +1 Culture to you

Since, I'm not too familiar with how they are doing Loyalty, I'm not sure if this ability is strong. Presumably this Identity has to do with keeping loyalty in your cities. Is Foreign Cities providing culture is a reference to something specific?

De Zeven Provincien-increased ranged and combat strength, receives additional bonus when attacking defensible districts

As expected, the Dutch receive a naval unit. It seems useful on Island Plates maps.

Polder-Unique improvement built on water tiles with sufficient adjacent coastline, provides food, production and a bit of housing, gain additional bonuses with later Civics and technologies.

The most interesting aspect of Civ6's Dutch Civ to me. Seems pretty powerful and will match the Kampungs of Indonesian. I wonder how much is sufficient adjacent coastline?

Anyone recognize the Dutch theme music?

 

[Sascha77]

Or you buid the harbour next to fish/crabs/other for adjacency, an then they become immediately workable. Not that bad



Which makes Netherlands the second xpack civ offering crappy conquest (Korea with no-adjacency campuses, Holland with plenty of unuseful bare-coastline cities (plus sub-standar adjacency districts because of river bonus). Meh.

Hmm.. that would be a bummer - and wouldn't make much sense. The Korea-thing does make sense to me - an adjacency-bonus might represent the way a specific civ run their universities/science-institutions. Take it over with another civ and you'll still have a working campus/university - just not one run as efficiently as under its original owner. A polder OTOH is "just" a structure and should still be usable by anyone who conquers it intact.



E.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I guess I was thinking of it more from a "realism" perspective, not everything has to be realistic but I thought the whole point of polders was to keep the water out.

It is actually land gained from sea or lakes by draining as @Tirius stated. Which even makes your point stronger. But until we know more we cannot conclude anything about it yet. Just summing the options for polders:
1. Accesible for land units only. (Problems: If city is conquered improvements disappear + exploit for player and annoyance if used by AI)
2. Accesible for water and embarked units only. (Problems: Realism + weird graphics of ships in Polder tiles )
3. Hybrid, both accesible for unembarked land units or water units. (Problems: weird graphics of ships in Polder tiles + what about embarked land units )

So I am curious how they did work it out.

Edit: @Victoria post points out that ship can traverse polders, so option 1 is not possible.

 

[anandus]

Hey, I was right about the ship

 

[UWHabs]

Maybe in the expac, they'll reverse that gameplay decision and allow Unique Improvements to remain after conquest

I wish they did. It's always such a pain to capture Gilgamesh's cities and have literally no improvements around. Just looks so.. empty.

 

[Cerilis]

I wish they did. It's always such a pain to capture Gilgamesh's cities and have literally no improvements around. Just looks so.. empty.

There could at least be ruins! Or something that can revert to the full improvement if the city is recaptured within 5 turns or so.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Hmm.. that would be a bummer - and wouldn't make much sense. The Korea-thing does make sense to me - an adjacency-bonus might represent the way a specific civ run their universities/science-institutions. Take it over with another civ and you'll still have a working campus/university - just not one run as efficiently as under its original owner. A polder OTOH is "just" a structure and should still be usable by anyone who conquers it intact.



E.

Nah. The conquerors wouldn't understand the intricacies of Dutch engineering. Maintenance would be slipshod, and one stormy night the Polder would succumb to the sea with much loss of life.

 

[sonicmyst]

This FL video made me like the polders even more. Beautiful and so useful.
And, those golden menu bar and golden (timer?) band in the End Turn button shows once again.

 

[RohirrimElf]

"De Zeven Provincien-increased ranged and combat strength, receives additional bonus when attacking defensible districts

As expected, the Dutch receive a naval unit. It seems useful on Island Plates maps."

I think De Zeven provinciën is not just a unique naval unit. I think it could be a very powerfull naval unit for the Netherlands.
Plus it plays to the Netherlands strenghts when it conqueres cities around coast tiles.

I would have hoped to get more trade bonusses with Radio Oranje. It seems a bit light. It could be strong but not much for an economic powerhouse like the Netherlands.

 

[sonicmyst]

Official civ article for Netherlands here: https://civilization.com/news/entri...d-fall-queen-wilhelmina-leads-the-netherlands

 

[Amrunril]

Maybe in the expac, they'll reverse that gameplay decision and allow Unique Improvements to remain after conquest

I hope this is the case, but I'm not holding my breath. UIs did remain after conquest in Civ V, so the developers apparently made a conscious decision to change the mechanic.

 

[Tinker]

The change of audio (presumably for a different take) when the narrator tries to pronounce the Dutch names of stuff is hilarious