New DLC on December 16

[Ahriman]

you could easily get 7-8 +100% vs mounted rifles in very short order out of them.

I generally don't find my rifles to be that afraid of enemy mounted units, but perhaps the AI will use them more now. Haven't played enough with the new patch.

I wonder if that will upgrade with them all the way to modern armor...

Assume you mean Mech Inf; rifles can't upgrade to Modern armor?
I assume that it will stick, someone said cavalry promoted to tanks retain their vulnerability to mounted units.....

it should stack with fertilizer

Lets hope so. Utterly useless if it doesn't.

But if it does nothing except get consumed as a settler, Conquistador has my nomination for worst UU in the game.
Maybe it allows you to build cities without being consumed, so you can city-spam on a new continent? Or allows you to create one new city per Conquistador, but that doesn't consume the unit?

 

[Sneaky Snake]

Hmm, so Spain + Great Barrier Reef = 1000 gold? I think I'm gonna like this civ...

 

[Valkrionn]

Inca – Pachacuti

Unique Ability: Great Andean Road
Units ignore terrain costs when moving into any tile with Hills. No maintenance costs for improvements in Hill; half-cost elsewhere.

Unique Unit: Slinger
Cost: 70, Moves: 2, Range: 2, Ranged Strength: 6, Strength: 2
One of the first available ranged Units, this Incan Unique Unit replaces the Archer. The Slinger is no more powerful than the Archer, and is even more fragile if subjected to a melee attack. However it possesses a promotion that gives it a good chance to withdraw to the rear before an enemy melee attack can occur.

Unique Improvement: Terrace Farm
The Terrace Farm can only be built on hills and does not need a source of fresh water to do so. If built next to a mountain it will provide additional food.


Spain - Isabella

Unique Ability: Seven Cities of Gold
Gold bonus for discovering a Natural Wonder (bonus enhanced if first to discover it). Culture, happiness, and tile yields from Natural Wonders doubled.

Unique Unit: Tercio
Cost: 140, Moves: 2, Strength: 18
Dominant military Unit of the Renaissance Era. Only Spain may build it. This Unit has a higher Combat Strength than the Musketman which it replaces, as well as the Bonus vs Mounted (100) promotion. However it is also more expensive to build.

Unique Unit: Conquistador
Cost: 150, Moves: 3, Strength: 18: Requires: 1 Horses
Renaissance Era unit that specializes in scouting and colonizing overseas (can found a city on a different continent). Only Spain may build it. Replaces the Knight.

Now that it's out...

The Terrace Farm wording is phrased very poorly. It receives +1 for each adjacent mountain. This means some tiles, in pockets of a mountain chain, can easily gain +4 over the base farm. I've had tiles with +5, even.

Incan ability is good. Being able to move 2 tiles with infantry in hilly terrain is powerful, as is the ability to roadspam on all your hilltiles at no cost.
Slinger is hard to evaluate without knowing what the withdraw chance is.
Terrace farm seems weak, especially if the bonus doesn't stack with civil service/fertilizer.
If it does, then 3-food hill tiles adjacent to mountains could be quite strong.

500 gold from finding a natural wonder is pretty broken in the early game, and its an insanely random ability.
Tercios seems mediocre. I think I'd rather have Musketeers.
Very glad that its a musket UU, not pikes.
Conquistador seems lame unless it has some other bonus - terrain mobility, gets terrain defenses, something?

Terrace does not stack with CS. Have not gotten far enough for Fert yet, but I am guessing no. Basically, terrace sucks. However, I do have a 15 hex long road that is costing me 1 gpt

The Terrace, again, gains food from each nearby mountain. It is far better than the stats show.

 

[Ahriman]

The Terrace Farm wording is phrased very poorly. It receives +1f for each adjacent mountain.

Huh. Interesting, but still massively map dependent.

I'm not sure I follow the logic of it though.
Is the idea that the population is really farming the mountain tile too?

 

[Valkrionn]

Huh. Interesting, but still massively map dependent.

I'm not sure I follow the logic of it though.
Is the idea that the population is really farming the mountain tile too?

I have no idea.

However, yes, it is map dependent. They are pretty well balanced, the only time the farms will be OP is if you get extremely lucky; One of my starts (on a Highlands map, so already good for them ) I was surrounded on three sides by a mountain chain. There was just enough room in the pocket that my capital had maybe 5-6 mountains in it's radius, yet had mountain-adjacent hills in nearly every third/second-tier tile. It was an amazing game.

 

[Celevin]

Even 2 mountains would make it worthwhile, as it would be a 3 food / 2 production tile.

Poor sheep. They can't compete with mountains.

 

[Valkrionn]

Don't talk to me about sheep.

Ruin so many good Terrace Farm locations... Fuzzy little bastards.

 

[ilikepies]

I like how they're spreading out with unique great people + improvements, but the new civs seem very specific. Incas are a hill civ and nothing more realy, and Spain is an explorer civ. Seems like Spain is more than a little bit OP. So far the new civs have been situation specific, overspecialized, and sometimes overpowered, but seems like they could be interesting if used right.

 

[SirSaab]

I like how they're spreading out with unique great people + improvements, but the new civs seem very specific. Incas are a hill civ and nothing more realy, and Spain is an explorer civ. Seems like Spain is more than a little bit OP. So far the new civs have been situation specific, overspecialized, and sometimes overpowered, but seems like they could be interesting if used right.

I don't know if your Inca analysis is accurate. If *NOTHING* else, they only pay .5 GPT for a road and 1 GPT for a railroad on non-hill tiles. They should always have a very robust economy.
Add in units ignoring movement on hill tiles and you get: faster early exploration, more efficient workers, more mobile settlers. Spain is glitzy, but in the end, I think Inca have more staying power.

 

[Ahriman]

They are pretty well balanced, the only time the farms will be OP is if you get extremely lucky

I'm not so worried about them being OP, I'm more worried about them being underpowered.

But anyway, they're an interesting mechanic that fits with a theme, Inca should be fun to play, deliberately trying to hug hug the mountain chains.

Incas are a hill civ and nothing more realy, and Spain is an explorer civ

I kinda like Civs with a flavorful theme. England are a naval civ, Mongols are a horse civ, arabs are a trade civ, Songhai is a conquest civ, etc.

Seems like Spain is more than a little bit OP.

Spain just seems incredibly hit or miss to me, and in ways that are really beyond your control as a player. Almost pure luck.
That doesn't seem like good design to me.
Also; does the number of natural wonders change with mapsize? Or is Spain going to handle very differently on small maps from large maps?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Iroquois are a forest civ.

 

[SirSaab]

I kinda like Civs with a flavorful theme. England are a naval civ, Mongols are a horse civ, arabs are a trade civ, Songhai is a conquest civ, etc.

...makes up for the fact that they all have the same diplomatic tendencies, and roughly the same personality...

 

[SirSaab]

Iroquois are a forest civ.

Actually, I was comparing the Inca to the Iroquois in my head when I found out about the Inca ability. I think the Inca ability is more flexible, and since it doesn't depend on borderslike the Iroqouis ability, it affords for flexibilty in city placement and troop movement (since forested hills count for the Inca ability, too).

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm not so worried about them being OP, I'm more worried about them being underpowered.

But anyway, they're an interesting mechanic that fits with a theme, Inca should be fun to play, deliberately trying to hug hug the mountain chains.


I kinda like Civs with a flavorful theme. England are a naval civ, Mongols are a horse civ, arabs are a trade civ, Songhai is a conquest civ, etc.


Spain just seems incredibly hit or miss to me, and in ways that are really beyond your control as a player. Almost pure luck.
That doesn't seem like good design to me.
Also; does the number of natural wonders change with mapsize? Or is Spain going to handle very differently on small maps from large maps?

Yeah, Inca are only OP if you specifically set the map up that way (highlands, heavy mountain settings, etc). They are, indeed, quite fun to play; They're my favorite civ atm.

Spain... Spain is fun, it's just too hit or miss for me, like you said. As for mapsize... Keep in mind, on smaller maps less effort must be expended to find them all, or settle near them. But yes, there will be differences.

 

[Txurce]

That Spain is feast or famine doesn't make it poorly designed - it just may not be for certain players. I think they are going to tilt to OP on a standard continents map.

I'm playing with the Incas, and like Valkrionn, am finding them to be a lot of fun. The hill movement is very useful, and makes the slingers deceptively effective. Free improvements including roads also make them an excellent small civ shooting for a culture or science win.

The slinger doesn't seem to retreat 80% of the time, nor foes he seem to do so only when having a spare move... but I'll keep a closer eye on this. Valkrionn, can you talk about their stats?

 

[Celevin]

I would like Spain more if there were more natural wonders on a map, and the ability itself wasn't quite as powerful (a smaller bonus). I've went tonnes and tonnes of games without the potential to grab a natural wonder in my city radius until at least mid-game. I think the volatility of the ability needs to be brought down a notch.

Randomness is good when it's controlled. I've been observing something in the creation of a board game: Randomness is best when players can observe it, and make a strategy based upon it. Randomness can be bad when players are forced to adopt a strategy first, then they get to see randomness either mess it up or make it good.

An example of the former is seeing the map set out, and choosing where to build cities. An example of the latter is choosing a civ and finding out that your unique abilities won't get the chance to be used effectively. For the latter, if the volatility of the random roll is too high, it takes control out of player hands.

 

[Valkrionn]

That Spain is feast or famine doesn't make it poorly designed - it just may not be for certain players. I think they are going to tilt to OP on a standard continents map.

I'm playing with the Incas, and like Valkrionn, am finding them to be a lot of fun. The hill movement is very useful, and makes the slingers deceptively effective. Free improvements including roads also make them an excellent small civ shooting for a culture or science win.

The slinger doesn't seem to retreat 80% of the time, nor foes he seem to do so only when having a spare move... but I'll keep a closer eye on this. Valkrionn, can you talk about their stats?

From what I remember... There is a base 80% chance. You then have a -20% chance for each base move of the attacker over 2 (so a 4move horseman lowers it by 40%), and then a -20% chance for each of the three hexes behind the slinger which is occupied (Meaning, leave a clear path of withdrawal!).

If all three rear hexes are occupied, withdrawal defaults to 0.

Honestly, I don't use them often. I like their economy, don't need the UU. Though it does keep it's withdrawal when upgraded, IIRC.

 

[the343danny]

Awesome! Free DLC for me because I bought it off D2D

 

[PieceOfMind]

Aussies charged 20% extra again. Price is $8.99 US.

 

[Pouakai]

Aussies charged 20% extra again. Price is $8.99 US.

Really? In NZ it was still only $7.49 US, $10.20 NZD