Nothing Rhymes With Orange - a Deity-Dutch post-game wrap-up with suggestions

[callmewoof]

(edit: fixed formatting, I think. Posting makes my brain hurt)
I decided to take some photos and notes in my most recent game. Happy to try out the new Culture-to-Tourism mechanics, I picked the Dutch. The Dutch UA says "+3 culture for imported luxuries. +3 gold for exported luxuries. Scales with Era. This is my opinion and as such will probably not mix with yours. That's okay though. I'm not right, I'm just telling my story. You be the judge of Fair vs OP.

Setup:
Deity, Epic Speed, (vanilla) Earth map - Standard Size, 10 Civs, 20 CS, Raging Barbarians, Random Personalities. All victory conditions, everything else default. Mods used: Whatever comes in the Automatic Full Install of CP/CPP/CBP w/EUI or whatever that thing is; no other mods used.

-Millitary CS Alliances Suck-
As seen here (http://i.imgur.com/JSPChdj.jpg), the benefit for being allied with a Military CS instead of just friends is 4 turns for a free unit. Four. Turns. Four. No other benefits - no extra exp, no bonuses, just four turns. This does not scale with Era, so it's never worth your time.

-Early Game-
I declared 4 early quick wars to steal a worker from Siam, America, Egypt, and 2 settlers from Etheopia. This never really came back to haunt me. Not all at the same time of course, but before the first 100 turns. Very useful. They helped me to build Stonehenge (I finished around turn 45. Egypt was busy with other wonders). Chop Chop Chop.

I founded the 9th out of 10 Pantheons, so I was stuck with the leftovers. I chose the Goddess of Festivals (+2 F/C from unique luxuries). This happened to fit in nicely with the Dutch UA. I founded the fourth and last Religion. I had 5 cities but only 1 shrine. Here is where things start to snowball. I am using the Tradition policy tree (for those early couple of great engineers for Wonder rushing).

-First Snow-
Seen here (http://i.imgur.com/gDMa73I.jpg), it is a very early Turn 125 (Epic speed this is early). How early? The AI only has spearmen at best. Nobody has Comp Bows yet, and I still have some Warriors. Here's the issue: Combining the Pantheon and the Dutch UA, I have 70 Culture per turn. Egypt, the AI Leader, only has 13. Please note that very soon the Religion part won't really matter, it just helped early game with a small boost (+12-18 on average).

-Give me all your lunch money-
(http://i.imgur.com/1XVDkaC.jpg) For some reason, because of my early culture-tourism lead, I can send trade routes to some other civs with zero downside. Money for me, Science for me, nothing for you (here, have some religion, now get out!). Why? I don't know. Math is hard.

-I reached Midieval, can I please win now?-
(http://i.imgur.com/KPxAT4D.jpg) I've met 7 of the 9 AI and my Blue Jeans and Music CDs are the stuff of legends. Having two neighboring civs with Influential culture means I can have 35 gold trade routes while giving them 1-5 gold. This is giving me 150-ish GPT which is a lot at this point (remember, epic speed).

-It's lonely at the top-
(http://i.imgur.com/jaCH03q.jpg) I am in the Rennaseince now. Egypt is still the king because he has 50% of all the wonders in the world. How well is that going for him? Well, I have completed two full trees (Tradition and Piety), while he's gotten into his first Imperialism policy! Way to go buddy, that's the spirit! I pick Industry and that's when things got out of control.

-INTERMISSION for BUGS-
I've had this happen a couple of games now. If you promise the AI you won't buy tiles or settle near them, and then break that promise, you are branded for life. Somehow the promise will keep repeating itself and you can never break free of your debt even if you don't break the promise again. This was about 150 turns after I originally broke my promise about buying tiles.
Take a look at this: (http://i.imgur.com/awiNyFH.jpg) Somehow, I have only 19 turns to go on my broken promise debt, but the game thinks that I have just re-upped my pledge for another 75 turns (I hadn't). Even stranger, 8 turns later, the "I promise you" timer has counted down by 8 turns, but the "I hate you for broken promises" timer has only gone down by TWO? What the heck?

-END INTERMISSION-

-So Shiny-
(http://i.imgur.com/ALWouDc.jpg) I have about 500 GPT at this point. I don't get any gold from my religion, and I only have 4 trade routes (all are on land). I was buying up all the luxuries I could get and selling all my second copies, plus I had a few temples (Piety). I was trying to keep my unique copies because of my Pantheon but this turned out to be a mistake as I would learn later.

-Communism, Ho!-
I have just entered into the Industrial era, and have finished Industry. Egypt is only 2 deep into Imperialism, and he's the leader. I pick Order, which didn't end up mattering because I didn't really use anything from it, or at least, nothing that I couldn't have picked up elsewhere. More on that later.

-I'd buy that for a dollar!-
Do you know how nutty the Industry tree is? When fully completed, anything is at your fingertips. (http://i.imgur.com/DeYM0a9.jpg?1) Starting a new city with a Pioneer, I wanted to build a Well. 22 turns? Let's invest! 1 turn? Much better. Why? MATH IS HARD DON'T ASK ME. Note - when I built Big Ben later, the well was down to 70 gold. Geez.

-I'd still buy that for a dollar-
I discovered that I was buying buildings because they MADE ME MONEY. Remember the Industry opener about getting 50g (scale w/Era) with every building? Look at that well. 70g to rush it, 1 turn to make it, 100g reward next turn. 30g profit. Say what? Buildings were either free, or easily refunded half their price and were being built by my cities at a rate of 1-per-turn for every pre-Rennaseince, and 2 turns for the others (Industrial buildings were averaging 4 turns after purchase of 400-ish gold). Imagine if I was Babylon (+15% more hammers from investing)!

-Weekend Update-
(http://i.imgur.com/YyFiLqI.jpg) A quick glance at the world. I've met everyone now, Egypt is still the "leader". I've taken 1 city from Siam and founded a couple on ocean islands. Wars have been otherwise purely defensive. I'm up to nearly triple the culture output of Egypt, have caught up to him in tech, double his tourism, and am caught up on science. It only goes faster from here.

Nintendo, the religion. I picked up the reformation for culture buildings = tourism, and all faith purchase buildings (the culture one and the gold one). Although three other AI's have picked the Piety tree, by this point I was so early to Piety that my religion has passively spread to half the world; I haven't built a single missionary and have only used my Great Prophets for tiles/enhancement. Poor Ethiopian Eastern Orthodoxy. He has around 7 cities, but 5 are swamped with insane passive pressure. He desperately spams missionaries only to be able to keep his Holy city and one other as his own religion.

-Golden Personality-
(http://i.imgur.com/pUu2AE9.jpg) As I said before, holding on to my unique copies of luxuries was holding me back. I would sell every last copy of stuff I had and buy the same things back from other players. Look at it this way: I have 1 coral, and I get nothing for it (except 2 C/F from the pantheon). If I sell my coral, someone will give me around 7 GPT, and I have my 3-9-scaling gold bonus. So I'm making money.

Now, I go and buy that same luxury back from someone else. Guess what, now I get a 3/6/9/whatever culture bonus for "importing" a luxury that I already had. Sneaky. 400g from traits (Dutch UA), and this is while I'm at WAR with 2 civs (reducing my overall trades and CPT/GPT).

-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-
(http://i.imgur.com/QvMHEgL.jpg)
I've been able to vote myself as congress host. The whole game I've only used diplomats on TWO CS near me in case of war (buffers). I've gained several alliances in the world because I was winning every single "we want: Tourism/Culture/Faith" quests. Passive alliances and the Unique Religion building gave me all those votes without trying.

THIS PART IS COOL: The AI is trying to derail my train to victory. It was smart enough to attempt to blockade my trading with the AI. If this had happened, I would have been crippled immensely! Sadly for them, it didn't pass (http://i.imgur.com/ZfmOufb.jpg). Turns out I had enough votes in this instance to keep myself safe, but I was surprised that I had a little love from other civs (ones that I had gone to war with, but now my trading partners).

-Join me, Friend-
Egypt finally hits Modern and gets an Ideology. He picks... order. Yeah, the other two are wide open, but he prefers to pick the ideology of his greatest threat while at war with me! Maybe he wanted the tennants, maybe he wanted the +15/15% building (he never would reach it), maybe he was worried about happiness issues. Still felt odd to me. I've almost won culture.

-Notice: I was never going for a culture victory until the very end. I just wanted to be able to gobble up policies. The game only ended because I started building tourism stuff. Had I kept to just culture and low tourism, I could have continued the game. Oops.-

-Also: Take that, Poland. I'm like Super Poland. Dutch can into Policy!-

-Order almost saves one turn-
(http://i.imgur.com/qPfCwGx.jpg) At 99.9% to my last culture influence, I'm one turn away from victory. But because you get a burst of tourism from GP being born, I pick this 3rd Tier tennant for 2 GP, pushing me to the victory on this turn while completely ignoring the spaceship part. Spaceships? What are those?

The two highest techs at the end of the game are Corporation and Electricity! 1685 AD, is that a thing? I don't measure dates when I play this game. That's either good or bad or average, who knows.

-Final Score (http://i.imgur.com/GnhGhXJ.jpg)-

-Never a winner, always winning-
(http://i.imgur.com/IHHBFiD.jpg) The end game graph tells a good story. Poor Arabia never recovered from some setbacks, and Egypt was technically dominating the entire game, but this was only based truly on Military score. So while they were the leader, I was the victor.

-Hey you, buy my Blue Jeans-
How good is the Dutch UA? Well, by the Modern Era, this was my situation: (http://i.imgur.com/DlBXE21.jpg) Yes, that is 825 Culture Per Turn from my UA. A UA that scales, so I don't even know how much that would be in the what, last two or three Eras of the game? While religion helped, by the end of the game it was only 150/2200 per turn. 800 culture per turn for a UA. Is that OP? Maybe. Did I play to specifically take advantage of it? Yes. 800. Per. Turn. From your default UA. Dear lord.

-Final Thoughts-
Order sucked. I only liked the tier 1 +33% GP tennant. By the time I had tier 2 unlocked, I already had public schools in almost all my cities, so I skipped it. I know this isn't useful feedback, but nothing was useful, in this case. Oh well.

Early through midway in the game, I wasn't aiming for science. The AI had hit the Rennasince before I finished building libraries in all my cities. The real boost was from Industry combined with my Dutch UA. I was making so much money per turn, I could rush buy 3 buildings easily per turn and they kept cascading into free gold in future turns. I was able to buy military units instantly every single turn, and still buy buildings. I started to invest into every wonder I built because I had the money to spare.

When you can take your poop cities with 5 buildings, and give them 10 more buildings in under 15 turns, do you realize how fast you scale? The explosion of growth, science, culture, and everything was insane. Several turns I ran out of places to spend my money. I started to take really bad deals with the AI like My 35/gpt for their 1 luxury, just because I could do that and still make over 900/gpt.

The AI was pretty decent at the vanilla Earth map. It spread out nicely and even filled most island locations. Territory was heated and traded constantly. The AI had a good mix of forts, units, navy, and the like. I'm not saying it was perfect, but it was much better than anything I've seen in the past.

I'm currently convinced that Culture is the #1 yield in the whole game. It unlocks EVERYTHING. It can get you free policies (first to an ideology), it gives you passive yields, it gives you bonuses, it gives you everything. Gold is better than science, in my opinion. Science gains a MASSIVE bloat around Industry and it really slows down no matter how much SPT you have. Science can't build you buildings, and it can't give you units, and it can't grow your cities. Gold can. Gold buys everything. Gold even buys science (buildings). Gold buys growth (more science/etc). Gold buys more culture. Units. Diplomats (for CS alliances). And almost anything you want from the AI.

That concludes my story. I had a fun time and had fun "breaking" the new culture-to-tourism mechanic. Okay, maybe not broken, but horribly abused. Feel free to disagree and leave your own thoughts! -Woof, out.

TLDR SUPER SUMMARY: Dutch UA gave me such a huge bonus that I was 3-5x more culture all game than the Deity AI culture leader.

 

[Funak]

I admit that the dutch UA is pretty good at the moment, trading away luxuries for other luxuries gives you a pretty big boost, it might need a nerf, but I'm not really sure about it.

However there are a few things I find extremely weird about your play-through. First of all the AI seems to have WAY less culture than they normally have in my games, and I mean WAY less, focusing full culture can usually get you ahead, that's for sure. But from the looks of your screenshots the AI didn't manage to fill out one tree before hitting the renaissance, that has never happened to me. In fact while most of them usually get to pick an ideology by entering modern era, 2 or 3 each game seems totally capable to filling 3 trees out before modern and picking an ideology that way.

Your numbers also feels kinda weird, 825 culture per turn from luxury-trades in modern era would mean you'd have to be importing 55 unique luxuries (825/15), and I'm not even sure there are supposed to be that many unique luxuries on a standard map.

Also I can't really get over how many luxuries you have near each city, I mean I can see 10 jade tiles in that 30 square desert in your First snow screenshot, that just seems like way too much.


Another note is that Raging barbarians really isn't recommended as it hurts the AI way more than it hurts you (as the AI is stupid as f), same goes for random personalities kinda, I mean the AI personalities are designed with a goal in mind.

 

[Atlas627]

It does look like the Earth map screwed things up somewhat. There seem to be many more luxuries (and types of luxuries) than normal. And I agree with Funak that usually the AI is swimming in culture, so I'm not sure what happened in your game.

Thanks for the writeup, nevertheless! I LOVE the Dutch but I've never thought to use their UA the way you did. I don't think its really intended either, though. Seems like a weird abuse case that nobody noticed before.

 

[Funak]

Thanks for the writeup, nevertheless! I LOVE the Dutch but I've never thought to use their UA the way you did. I don't think its really intended either, though. Seems like a weird abuse case that nobody noticed before.

I usually sell all the luxuries I have and repurchase them from other players if available when playing the dutch, I'll admit that it really isn't very fun, but that's how you play the civ .
I'm guessing you could remake the UA to just give you a bonus for each unique owned luxury, but I don't know if that would make much sense. It would be more AI-friendly however

 

[callmewoof]

I'm not sure why it said that 825 culture was from traits. Perhaps it was including some form of modifiers from techs/buildings/etc but just showing the total after bonuses. And the earth map is always like that for luxuries every time - standard start, standard settings, vanilla map. I thought that was normal for Earth? If you start up that map and dev console reveal all, I'm pretty sure you'll see the same thing.

I think that using random personalities probably made some weird combos that didn't fit well. The only other thing I can really think is that by the end of the game, Egypt had about 50% of all wonders, I had 40%-ish, and 10% split between all other civs - and most of my wonders were the mid-late game ones so I had that advantage combined with snowballing. I didn't even finish with the most great works. Russia had 18, Egypt 17, and I had 12 (not counting about 10 artifacts).

Oh, and I think 5 AI chose Authority as their opener. Nobody chose Statescraft (forbidden Palace wasn't built). And I found that the AI had issues sending Diplomats to any CS that wasn't on their continent. However, they were all distrustful of each other and open borders were rare, complicating reaching the CS.

I agree that there were some unusual circumstances and this wouldn't happen every time, but it still highlights some flaws and weaknesses, and shows how amazing some things are if given the opportunity to get rolling.

 

[Valvts]

Good feedback callmewoof(Confused you two), I see you didnt even mess with Monopolies.
Yeah the Dutch UA is crazy batshit.
Order is great when you are isolated, sanctioned and in constant war, I would pick freedom if I were you.

 

[Funak]

I'm not sure why it said that 825 culture was from traits. Perhaps it was including some form of modifiers from techs/buildings/etc but just showing the total after bonuses. And the earth map is always like that for luxuries every time - standard start, standard settings, vanilla map. I thought that was normal for Earth? If you start up that map and dev console reveal all, I'm pretty sure you'll see the same thing.

The dutch UA isn't multiplied by anything, except happiness and golden ages, and they are counted separately.
I guess, I've never played on an earth map, that just seems extremely excessive however, as bad as the communitas map.

I think that using random personalities probably made some weird combos that didn't fit well. The only other thing I can really think is that by the end of the game, Egypt had about 50% of all wonders, I had 40%-ish, and 10% split between all other civs - and most of my wonders were the mid-late game ones so I had that advantage combined with snowballing. I didn't even finish with the most great works. Russia had 18, Egypt 17, and I had 12 (not counting about 10 artifacts).

Something feels kinda fishy, about that run, no idea what could have gone wrong however. Random personalities does hurt the AI a big deal however.

Oh, and I think 5 AI chose Authority as their opener. Nobody chose Statescraft (forbidden Palace wasn't built). And I found that the AI had issues sending Diplomats to any CS that wasn't on their continent. However, they were all distrustful of each other and open borders were rare, complicating reaching the CS.

In my latest finished game the Ancient era trees were fairly well distributed(or as well as it goes on 5 AI ), 3 of them went tradition, 1 authority and 1 progress.
Not one of them went for Aesthetics however, most of we were 4 people that went for piety, including me, and 2 people went statecraft. I think that's fairly random tbh, as it wasn't exactly any CS-focused civs in the game.

I agree that there were some unusual circumstances and this wouldn't happen every time, but it still highlights some flaws and weaknesses, and shows how amazing some things are if given the opportunity to get rolling.

It just feels pretty odd.

Good feedback Funak, I see you didnt even mess with Monopolies.
Yeah the Dutch UA is crazy batshit.
Order is great when you are isolated, sanctioned and in constant war, I would pick freedom if I were you.

Orders main selling-point is the bonus that lets your corporate offices count as franchises, which is huge on smaller maps or when you control a large part of the cities in the world. Along with a lot of unhappiness reduction. Honestly I think it does a pretty good job at what it does, but naturally if you compare it to how dominant it was in vanilla it is going to come up short.

 

[callmewoof]

The dutch UA isn't multiplied by anything, except happiness and golden ages, and they are counted separately.

Something feels kinda fishy, about that run, no idea what could have gone wrong however.

I understand and I take no offense. This is the internet after all, and besides that I can't even spell Renaissance without Chrome word correction (I didn't bother last night, hehe).

If it helps at all, I can give you my save file(s). I don't know what's up with it either. This was my first time as the Dutch so I figured everything was normal. I'm not calling for change based off my one game, I just wanted to share my results. Even if my numbers are off for some reason, this is one heck of an OP UA. Also, Industry is OP even if 2 or 3 of the policies in it absolutely suck (the passives alone are worth it).

The only last ditch idea that I can think of, besides the Earth map being jacked up or my game having messed up .dlls or whatever, is that perhaps while the Dutch UA shouldn't be mysteriously multiplied, maybe it is by mistake. Could there be some line of code, or some wonder, or policy, or whatever, that is slipping through and applying itself roguishly?

 

[Funak]

I understand and I take no offense. This is the internet after all, and besides that I can't even spell Renaissance without Chrome word correction (I didn't bother last night, hehe).

I'm not accusing you of faking things, that would be completely pointless, I'm just trying to understand why things happened the way they did. Since I'm not really playing those types of maps I have no experience with how they turn out but if they all turn out like your game did then we might need to add some warning, because that doesn't sound like it worked properly.

If it helps at all, I can give you my save file(s). I don't know what's up with it either. This was my first time as the Dutch so I figured everything was normal. I'm not calling for change based off my one game, I just wanted to share my results. Even if my numbers are off for some reason, this is one heck of an OP UA. Also, Industry is OP even if 2 or 3 of the policies in it absolutely suck (the passives alone are worth it).

Industry is awesome, but so is Imperialism, I mean just the policy adding 1 food 1 hammer to all farms carries the entire tree. This is probably more a case of rationalism being too bad.

The only last ditch idea that I can think of, besides the Earth map being jacked up or my game having messed up .dlls or whatever, is that perhaps while the Dutch UA shouldn't be mysteriously multiplied, maybe it is by mistake. Could there be some line of code, or some wonder, or policy, or whatever, that is slipping through and applying itself roguishly?

I think it worked properly the last time I used it, maybe something bugs out with city-state allies giving you luxuries or getting luxuries from great admirals. Either way 55 feels really off as I don't even think there are 55 different luxuries in the game.


If you want to have fun, try an Oval map next time.

 

[hokath]

Loved it.
That culture is weird though. +800, da fuq?

 

[callmewoof]

Funak, you are awesome! You're right, 825 culture from the UA would have to be 55 luxuries. And 55 it is. Time to explain!

I didn't screenshot it, but in the game I'm currently getting 12 different luxuries imported (some which I already had, but was able to get because of selling my last copy). How do we get 55 from 12? Check it out:

Spoiler :

These are my current CS allies; I don't have any friends, just allies. This part is totally jacked up. If you count, they have a total of 28 unique luxuries (at least, unique to themselves). We're still short of 55. Take another look. If you ignore the unique part, you will find a total of 38 (for example, almaty is giving me 3 sugars). The game thinks they are importing me 38 luxuries, even though I have several of these already (not unique), and the game is counting their duplicates as more imports.

38 + 12 = 50. Still 5 short. Enter the Nau.

Spoiler :

At one point in the game, I was gifted exactly one Nau from Almaty. I sent it over to some far away CS and, like the game says, was able to use it twice. It built the Feitoria and gave me a copy of their luxuries, despite I already had most (except the glass/jewelery). Notice I was not allies or friends with these two CS, so these are the missing 5. That puts me up to 55 luxuries at 825 CPT. Time to test the theory.

Spoiler :

Two events happen in the next turn: Hannoi goes from Ally to Friend (removing their luxuries) and I declared war on Antwerp. Hannoi had 3 unique luxuries (one copy each) so I lost 3*15 culture. That makes sense. How about my theory of multiple copies counting? Antwerp was giving me only 5 unique luxuries, but 7 total copies (3 fur). As you see in this screenshot, I dropped to 675 CPT. 825-675 = 150 / 15 per luxury = 10 luxuries, which is exactly what I lost this turn. HOLY CRAP!

To summarize: The Dutch UA is activating way too often, for: Luxuries from trades with AI, Luxuries from your Ally CS's and counts each copy of luxuries (even duplicates for themselves and if you already own them or other CS's provide them), and in extremely rare cases the luxuries you can gain from the Nau (which I did, haha, super rare). Calling Gazebo! I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intention behind the UA (since gaining CS allies turns you into a culture god). Nerf Nerf Nerf! Funak, you are awesome.

Edit on Nau: The game says you get 1 copy of each luxury, and that's all you get. You'll notice there are 2 whales from one of them, but the game is still just giving me 1 like it said. However, had I been allies, it would have counted twice as noted below. So Nau ability is correct and the math still adds up.

 

[WileyNg]

In my game as Dutch I was swimming in excessive culture and gold too.
But soon for some reason I pissed every one off and got wrecked in wars.

So I think it's very situational. The Dutch only has an edge on gold and culture. In higher difficulties, the dutch can hardly defend itself against aggressive AI.

 

[callmewoof]

In my game as Dutch I was swimming in excessive culture and gold too.
But soon for some reason I pissed every one off and got wrecked in wars.

So I think it's very situational. The Dutch only has an edge on gold and culture. In higher difficulties, the dutch can hardly defend itself against aggressive AI.

A: See my post above.
B: This game was Deity and I held my own even before the culture cascade.

 

[Gazebo]

The Dutch UA is working as intended (it has nothing to do with unique luxuries, just raw I/O of imported and exported luxuries no matter how many you do or do not have).

If this is too strong, we can bring it back down to +1/+1 or +2/+2.

Great write-up. I think that it some of the ease of deity will subside now that the AI knows how to war (seriously, with the way Firaxis wrote the code I'm surprised the AI ever figured out how to send an army/navy anywhere).


G

 

[callmewoof]

The Dutch UA is working as intended (it has nothing to do with unique luxuries, just raw I/O of imported and exported luxuries no matter how many you do or do not have).

If this is too strong, we can bring it back down to +1/+1 or +2/+2.

Great write-up. I think that it some of the ease of deity will subside now that the AI knows how to war (seriously, with the way Firaxis wrote the code I'm surprised the AI ever figured out how to send an army/navy anywhere).


G

Wow, intended? I'm not sure if that feels right. But as you said the new AI change is coming. There were some wars that would not be the same if the AI had been enhanced. I couldn't have gotten away with tactics. I still may have won but it would have been very difficult if the AI was a storm to hold back. Looking forward to the challenge!

 

[Funak]

Wow, intended? I'm not sure if that feels right. But as you said the new AI change is coming. There were some wars that would not be the same if the AI had been enhanced. I couldn't have gotten away with tactics. I still may have won but it would have been very difficult if the AI was a storm to hold back. Looking forward to the challenge!

Honestly, considering you owned all the CS in the game (which probably isn't intended) I think that number might be fine actually.
I mean from just your own imports 12 luxuries would give you 180 culture per turn, still quite a bit, but nothing that amazing.


I think straight up lowering the number(to +2 or +1) would just hurt the dutch too much in most normal situations. If something needs to be done I would still suggest making it a bonus for each unique luxury owned (exactly like the pantheon but scaling with era).

 

[callmewoof]

Actually I only owned about 8/20 of them, 3 I still hadn't contacted yet (map provided by Russia in trade). I suppose it isn't so bad after all. Normally you'll be fighting to have that many allies, and doing so seriously pisses off the AI. I'll give it another shot with the new AI combat enhancements, no raging barbs, normal personalities, and not Earth. That should give fresh viewpoint.

 

[Funak]

Actually I only owned about 8/20 of them, 3 I still hadn't contacted yet (map provided by Russia in trade). I suppose it isn't so bad after all. Normally you'll be fighting to have that many allies, and doing so seriously pisses off the AI. I'll give it another shot with the new AI combat enhancements, no raging barbs, normal personalities, and not Earth. That should give fresh viewpoint.

Again, try with Oval map, it is fun.

 

[Atlas627]

The reason why I say that the Dutch UA isn't intended to be used that way is because it is essentially an abuse of the AI. I wouldn't buy and sell luxuries to the Dutch that carelessly, and I'm sure the Dutch AI doesn't use this tactic either.

 

[callmewoof]

One thing I do find odd, at first the replies expressed "800 culture UA? OP!" "Zomg!" "sounds broken". Then when I found where it was coming from, and G confirmed it, everyone switched to "not that OP" "good, not great" "meh". What gives?