Poland, Casimir, overpowered?

[Pietato]

Which the other civs get too, Poland don't get any real advantage at Culture because Policies should not be hard to get if you go for Culture.

Which the other civs pay for. Poland gets it entirely for free, and has a leftover policy.

Anyone who thinks this UA is fine is delluding themselves. And the whole logic of 'it is not overpowered it is just stronger than the rest' is nonsensical.

 

[InDubioProReo]

Not sure about being OP, but I definitely think it's the strongest UA in the game.

 

[Karmah]

The vote seems split here. I voted no because, as Gostu stated, Poland's UA is very flexible. If you wish to go for science, the UA will help you open rationalism on reaching renaissance. If you're going for cultural victory, you can open aestethics ASAP. Etc. etc.

Being very good at anything you want is indeed a good reason to vote no

 

[njmfff]

I am starting to respect Poland AI, he always seems to be top dog in any game. Good massive empire, good science per turn, descent culture, usually among top tech guys, and always has huge GPT (usually around 250-350gpt). He also has strong military, usually 2nd or 3rd place (if Zulu or other warmongers are in the game)

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I am starting to respect Poland AI, he always seems to be top dog in any game. Good massive empire, good science per turn, descent culture, usually among top tech guys, and always has huge GPT (usually around 250-350gpt). He also has strong military, usually 2nd or 3rd place (if Zulu or other warmongers are in the game)

Well in my deity OCC yesterday you could say he was all opposite what you said and ended up as a Snack for the other Civs.
However in that game I did steal a worker from him.

 

[Dtekkar]

One of the best UAs but there's plenty of godly Civ uniques. In that context, i think it's fine. I do think that uniques in general are a bit highly tuned - often auto-wins in the relevant era or massive advantages towards a certain VC. The flavor is nice, though.

 

[Dtekkar]

I am starting to respect Poland AI, he always seems to be top dog in any game. Good massive empire, good science per turn, descent culture, usually among top tech guys, and always has huge GPT (usually around 250-350gpt). He also has strong military, usually 2nd or 3rd place (if Zulu or other warmongers are in the game)

Poland can definitely runaway with the game with enough territory, like many of the civs with happiness buildings.

 

[reddishrecue]

With solidarity it is so easy to complete many social policy tracks and gain so many bonuses earlier.

 

[GoStu]

I'm still going to stick with a "No" for overpowered. Of course, I'm not saying that Poland isn't really good (they are), but outright overpowered? No.

What we're really debating is whether or not Solidarity is truly OP. The Ducal Stable is a solid but not revolutionary building, and the Winged Hussar is little more than a novelty. It's better than the base Lancer it replaces, but the Lancer might be the most worthless unit in the game, so really the WH is a slightly less gaping hole in its role with a neat trick.

My reasoning for Solidarity not being overpowered is that it doesn't make Poland race ahead in any particular area. Korea and Babylon will still do science better; Brazil and France will still out-tourism them; the Mongols or Huns can kill them dead; and Greece can easily outdo them in City-State relations. Civs with an inclination for a victory condition will naturally pick the appropriate social policy tree for that condition (Rationalism for Science, Aesthetics for Culture, etc). While Poland can close out any specific tree for those conditions faster, the other civs have a base advantage above and beyond what the social policy tree offers).

A typical civ in my experience can max two trees out plus a couple policies in a third before diving into an ideology deep enough to get a level 3 tenet. Serious Cultural civs can do a bit more of course, but I'm talking a vanilla civ here. Poland can use those extra seven policies to close the third tree out and grab another level 3 ideological tenet. This lets them be strong in multiple areas at once, but they won't be the first place in everything.

Of course, Poland can leverage being good in some second area to its advantage against those more specialized civs (cultural dominance against science rival, science lead over military rival, war against cultural rival, etc). Strong, but not unbeatable, therefore not overpowered.

 

[adwcta]

But, that's just the thing. It is not true that Poland can't do things better on specific VCs.

Poland can get through Rationalism faster than any other civ. Poland can also pair up Patronage with Rationalism and 2 policies into Commerce for not only science which rivals Korea, but also all the other benefits to controlling CS across the board.

Poland can get both Exploration and Aesthetics without sacrificing Rationalism. It will hit Hotels, Airports, Internet and the third tier tourism tenant faster than Brazil/France. If Poland plays wide and leverages this advantage, it will easily outpace Brazil/France, who suffer relative penalties going wide (Brazil runs out of jungle quick, France's UA only applies to capital). On Deity standard game, I've gotten 75%+ of the artifacts and hidden artifacts on the map without once going into war. This also denies the AI valuable culture to ensure your win.

Poland can get gold via Piety (+gold per city AND -30% gold cost to CS) and Rationalism and completing Commerce/Exploration to go with Patronage to generate an insane amount of gold (between raw generation and the significant more attractiveness of your cities as destination trade routes). This rivals Greece at CS control, which doesn't even matter, because all civs can establish CS control by the time the vote triggers... so the faster Diplo victory is all about triggering the vote first with CS control, which Greece has no advantages on in the first place.

Fair point on military conquest.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

But, that's just the thing. It is not true that Poland can't do things better on specific VCs.

Poland can get through Rationalism faster than any other civ. Poland can also pair up Patronage with Rationalism and 2 policies into Commerce for not only science which rivals Korea, but also all the other benefits to controlling CS across the board.

And why can not other Civs get whose policies your talking about, using some Great Writers will allow them to get these policies fast, and then Korea get these policies they got better science then Poland.

Poland can get both Exploration and Aesthetics without sacrificing Rationalism. It will hit Hotels, Airports, Internet and the third tier tourism tenant faster than Brazil/France. If Poland plays wide and leverages this advantage, it will easily outpace Brazil/France, who suffer relative penalties going wide (Brazil runs out of jungle quick, France's UA only applies to capital). On Deity standard game, I've gotten 75%+ of the artifacts and hidden artifacts on the map without once going into war. This also denies the AI valuable culture to ensure your win.

Both Brazil and France UI is Worth like a Great Work, basiclly these Civs can Build GW.
Poland can't do that so it will actually get less benefint on it tourism then these Civs if it go wide.
Brazil and France can save up their Great Writers, maybe use like 2 for Oxford and use the rest for Culture Bomb allowing them to get the key policies and still beat a Poland that Great Worked all its Writers at tourism.
[/QUOTE]

Poland can get gold via Piety (+gold per city AND -30% gold cost to CS) and Rationalism and completing Commerce/Exploration to go with Patronage to generate an insane amount of gold (between raw generation and the significant more attractiveness of your cities as destination trade routes). This rivals Greece at CS control, which doesn't even matter, because all civs can establish CS control by the time the vote triggers... so the faster Diplo victory is all about triggering the vote first with CS control, which Greece has no advantages on in the first place.

Greece can get Most of the policies your talking about while keeping CS as allies far cheaper then any other civ can getting many bonuses that way.
Fair point on military conquest.

 

[aljung]

I think Poland as a whole is strong, mainly due to the lack of any real weakness. Once they get ahead it's very hard to counter them. Honestly, their UA should only work in the second half of the game, like someone here already suggested.

 

[BBMorti]

Good luck winning a culture victory quicker than Poland with France.
Good luck winning a diplomatic victory with Alexander, quicker than with Poland

All types of victory can be achieved noticeably faster with Poland, or the science civs (Unless it's on a tiny pagaea type of map), the people who keeps arguing against that should put up a challenge thread and put their rhetoric to the test, deity players knows how broken Poland is.

 

[Furret]

And why can not other Civs get whose policies your talking about, using some Great Writers will allow them to get these policies fast, and then Korea get these policies they got better science then Poland.


Both Brazil and France UI is Worth like a Great Work, basiclly these Civs can Build GW.
Poland can't do that so it will actually get less benefint on it tourism then these Civs if it go wide.
Brazil and France can save up their Great Writers, maybe use like 2 for Oxford and use the rest for Culture Bomb allowing them to get the key policies and still beat a Poland that Great Worked all its Writers at tourism.

Great Writer culture bombs are usually more like 60% of a policy unless you've just won the world fair, so unless you're going to delay the worlds fair until you have 5 or 6 ready with a golden age you're simply not going to get the same amount of culture that poland does simply by teching through the eras. That's not to mention two important facts about that strategy:

1) If you save all your writers, you won't get the policy benefits until later in the game
2) What's to stop poland from doing the exact same thing and being yet another entire policy tree ahead of you?

(Assuming a CV intent) Poland will probably have time to finish tradition/liberty and aesthetics before rationalism, will be able to open exploration faster, and probably actually finish exploration while still getting the crucial ideology policies. With correct archaeologist prioritization, I still think Poland has the advantage in a culture race.

 

[Fish Man]

All of this discussion so far has been talk and no directly-stated concrete proof. I can safely say that Poland's UA is OP, and that I have evidence to prove it. In my 3rd (THIRD) game in BNW that I have ever played, I won a t292 DEITY SV as Poland. I have some experience in G+K emperor SVs, but the two games that I played on prince in BNW before resulted in losses, and that was using the Shoshone, so that gives an idea of how inexperienced I was at the time.

Now here's the unbelievable part: I didn't build ANY guilds, build ANY culture-generation wonders, or get ANY great works during the game - and yet because of solidarity I finished the game with maxed-out tradition, rationalism, and a level-3 tenet in order. My culture-per-turn at the end was a measly 51. To be able to neglect such a vital part of the game, and yet still win a comfortable deity SV playing as Poland while having little to no prior BNW experience is a clear indication of how OP the civ is.

 

[reddishrecue]

With Poland, I was able to complete the piety social policy track along with 2 aesthetic social policies before rationalism was available in multiplayer. It was great getting ahead in social policies so easily.

 

[docbud]

I don't know about the UA being overpowered, but those winged hussars are a pain in the butt to deal with. In fact, I'm at war with Poland in my current game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Great Writer culture bombs are usually more like 60% of a policy unless you've just won the world fair, so unless you're going to delay the worlds fair until you have 5 or 6 ready with a golden age you're simply not going to get the same amount of culture that poland does simply by teching through the eras. That's not to mention two important facts about that strategy:

1) If you save all your writers, you won't get the policy benefits until later in the game
2) What's to stop poland from doing the exact same thing and being yet another entire policy tree ahead of you?

(Assuming a CV intent) Poland will probably have time to finish tradition/liberty and aesthetics before rationalism, will be able to open exploration faster, and probably actually finish exploration while still getting the crucial ideology policies. With correct archaeologist prioritization, I still think Poland has the advantage in a culture race.

Poland lacks one very very important thing, Culture UI.
Basicly each Culture UI you get is Worth like one Great Work.
Yes Poland can do that but their is just so many policies that will really help you more then getting more Great Works, which is far more important for Civs like Poland then for say France.
By saving up your great writers, maybe even faith buy one or two you should be able to have like whole exploration finished by the time you can get archaeology, rationalism should have some policies in it, aesthetics likley finished to and Culture coming in so fast all rest key polices will be gotten soon.
Why would Poland want more policies trees then they get Little to no benifint from them if they go Culture CV?

I think Poland as a whole is strong, mainly due to the lack of any real weakness. Once they get ahead it's very hard to counter them. Honestly, their UA should only work in the second half of the game, like someone here already suggested.

That would make Poland rediculus weak, alot of games are de facto won Before Industrial era, basicly it would be like playing a civ with no bonuses at all in the most important stage, the begining

All of this discussion so far has been talk and no directly-stated concrete proof. I can safely say that Poland's UA is OP, and that I have evidence to prove it. In my 3rd (THIRD) game in BNW that I have ever played, I won a t292 DEITY SV as Poland. I have some experience in G+K emperor SVs, but the two games that I played on prince in BNW before resulted in losses, and that was using the Shoshone, so that gives an idea of how inexperienced I was at the time.

Now here's the unbelievable part: I didn't build ANY guilds, build ANY culture-generation wonders, or get ANY great works during the game - and yet because of solidarity I finished the game with maxed-out tradition, rationalism, and a level-3 tenet in order. My culture-per-turn at the end was a measly 51. To be able to neglect such a vital part of the game, and yet still win a comfortable deity SV playing as Poland while having little to no prior BNW experience is a clear indication of how OP the civ is.

Nothing strange or unbelievable because Poland gets about 7 free policies in a game which is Little more then a tree.
The only thing you really are saying is that Poland is an easy civ to use not that its OP which is a completly different thing and do not have anything to do with if an civ is easy or hard to use.

 

[Vaclac]

I think Poland as a whole is strong, mainly due to the lack of any real weakness. Once they get ahead it's very hard to counter them. Honestly, their UA should only work in the second half of the game, like someone here already suggested.

I agree, even just taking away the first SP they get would balance them out I think, so they get them starting with the Medieval Era - which probably fits better for them anyway, as they were not a Classical Age power. Would still be powerful mid-to-late game, but since the beginning matters so much more, it would probably even out to about balanced with some UAs that are stronger early on.

 

[Sagax]

At this rate we may end up having "Poland against the world" games to prove whether Poland is OP or not.