Old Abilities With New Synergies in R&F

isau

Deity
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Jan 15, 2007
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I was wondering what various existing abilities have new synergies people have discovered in R&F.

A big surprise for me was Spanish Conquistadors. They convert a city instantly to your religion when you take it with them nearby, just like they always did. But they are much stronger in R&F than in a Vanilla, because you get a very nice +3 era score points if you convert a city you are at war with. If you steam roll a neighbor with a Conquistador army like I did to England in my most recent game, you can easily earn yourself a mid-game Golden Age.

What are some other new synergies?
 
I still am teasing out the increased utility of envoys - ensuring suzerainty over neighboring CS is more important for expansion and maintaining loyalty over longer expanses, it seems, meaning that both Pericles and Gorgo benefit - especially Pericles.

The increased significance of population size has led to 3 DLC civs - Australia, Khmer and especially Indonesia - more powerful. The increased population size can both help win 'loyalty wars' more easily and survive Dark Ages more in-tact.
 
I still am teasing out the increased utility of envoys - ensuring suzerainty over neighboring CS is more important for expansion and maintaining loyalty over longer expanses, it seems, meaning that both Pericles and Gorgo benefit - especially Pericles.

The increased significance of population size has led to 3 DLC civs - Australia, Khmer and especially Indonesia - more powerful. The increased population size can both help win 'loyalty wars' more easily and survive Dark Ages more in-tact.

It might be tied to the difficulty setting, but in deity I find that city states are now 75% extinct by the classical age. Envoys become much less usefull as the main way to get suzerain ship is liberation, and it won't prevent AI from re-taking it and wasting any additional envoy you might have sent.
 
It might be tied to the difficulty setting, but in deity I find that city states are now 75% extinct by the classical age. Envoys become much less usefull as the main way to get suzerain ship is liberation, and it won't prevent AI from re-taking it and wasting any additional envoy you might have sent.

It seems like a very poor decision to liberate a CS without preventing an AI
from taking it back soon. Or am I missing something in what you described?

(And they aren't extinct if they aren't razed. They are still there for whoever
wants to make the effort, human or AI.)
 
It might be tied to the difficulty setting, but in deity I find that city states are now 75% extinct by the classical age. Envoys become much less usefull as the main way to get suzerain ship is liberation, and it won't prevent AI from re-taking it and wasting any additional envoy you might have sent.

I always play with two mods that add (a) walls to CS upon their founding and (b) additional starting units for CS. I find that it has a pretty significant affect on the speed at which, and total number of, conquered CS - especially early game. I prefer it that way, but yeah - the benefits for Pericles are reduced if you don't play with some sort of mod increasing CS survivability.

The pop growth rates of Australia,Khmer and Indonesia remain particularly potent boosts to loyalty.
 
I think faith in general has become much more valuable, with the ability to purchase workers and settlers with certain era dedications. Meaning Civ's with faith bonuses are better than they used to be.

I agree, though wierdly I also think it's made religious victory less appealing at the same time. Why spend your faith on missionaries/apostles to send out on conversion duty and risk getting bogged down in a lengthy religious stalemate with another religion-focused civ when you can save it up for the eras where you have the buy settlers and workers for faith dedication active and use it to help you towards another victory type? :crazyeye:
 
There is a negative synergy for early war with civs that have special early units. Captured cities flip too easily. One really needs the first governor in play before starting wars else there's a fairly annoying and regular change in loyalty for captured cities. I was surprised that this negative loyalty accrued for captured capitals, too. Once you get one or two guvs, it's not so bad, but having cities flip constantly in the early game puts a damper on expansion.
 
Arabia's strengths have changed significantly. In vanilla Arabia was all about getting 6 envoys with all the scientific city states to power up your Madrassas, but now city states provide their bonus to buildings instead of the district. At the same time that dark age policy card that gives +100% science for cities with holy sites was tailor made for Arabia, which is the only civ that is built around having a campus and a holy site in every city. R&F also made faith more valuable for non-religious purposes. Overall I think Arabia is weaker at RV but stronger at SV.
 
Really? A combat bonus for visibility? I had no idea! Is this bonus visible on the diplomatic screen or somewhere?
 
Here are a few more from me:

- Poland can do the same trick with religious conversion mentioned above for Spain, by using its religious-conversion -via-culture-bomb ability. Just as long as you have at least one tile that can border pop into a new territory and some Military Engineers, you can keep a chain of +3 Era Score points going with forts and rocket to a Golden Age in record time.

- The Poland/Spain strategy works especially well with the religious beliefs that provide +10 combat strength for units nearby. Spain works better with the one that provides your units +10 in your own territory, and Poland probably with the one that provides you +10 against enemy units once the religion exists there.

- Settling on a Desert, Tundra, or Snow provides 1 era point. It's occasionally effective, particularly in the early game I find, to grab a point there to avoid a Dark Age or tip toe into a Golden Age.
 
Rome should be fun with Ancestral Hall and Magnus’ promotion to not lose a population when training a settler. Spam out settlers and have the free monument and road to the new city.

Rome should be able to make quick, powerful empires. Just like it should be. :)
 
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Rome should be fun with Ancestral Hall and Magnus’ promotion to not lose a population when training a settler. Spam out settlers and have the free monument and road to the new city.

Rome should be able to make quick, powerful empires. Just like it should be. :)
Haven’t thought of this and Rome is one of my favourites. I haven’t used them since the expansion because I’m trying to get through the new civs
 
Gitarja’s +2 faith to any city center that is adjacent to water combined with her costal bias means that she has a very good chance at goddess of the harvest every game, which is OP when combined with Magnus and Monumentality.
 
I agree, though wierdly I also think it's made religious victory less appealing at the same time. Why spend your faith on missionaries/apostles to send out on conversion duty and risk getting bogged down in a lengthy religious stalemate with another religion-focused civ when you can save it up for the eras where you have the buy settlers and workers for faith dedication active and use it to help you towards another victory type? :crazyeye:

Exactly! Also on slightly larger map with 6+ civs it seems that the AI have a very hard time winning a religious victory anyway, so I'm happy to ignore religion, or rather see it as an extra spice that you may choose not to care about.
 
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