PolyCast 354: The Third Primer

[CanusAlbinus]

The three hundred-and-fifty-fourth episode of PolyCast, “The Third Primer“, features regular co-hosts Stephanie “Makahlua”, Philip “TheMeInTeam”, and Jason “MegaBearsFan” Grade with guest co-host DanQ and discusses the following:

Senate
- 00h01m11s | Using Spies
- 00h37m55s | Navies and Naval Wars
- 00h59m38s | Air Forces and Airports

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday at 12 Noon US Eastern Time throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civilization community an interactive voice; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding.

 

[Victoria]

Great content once again

Espionage Comments:
The intelligence agency give a free spy
You can cancel a mission at any time, you are not committed (just click on the spy unit and cancel action). You just cannot cancel a travel to a city.
Once you are at 90% success it does not matter if it is siphon funds or steal tech (unless there is counter espionage in place)
You did not mention spies give diplomatic visibility levels which affect combat by +3 or +6 - pretty damn vital.
Rock bands die until a couple of levels, then they rock... similar with spies, so cathering and intelligence agency are both very useful to stop new spies dying.
Wierd how you all disregard fabricate scandal. Some suzerain bonuses make this option very useful (i.e.Kabul, Yerevan, Auckland, Nan Modhal or Geneva). Certainly compared to siphon gold. (my personal favourite is fabricate scanadal)
Potala palace is a very useful wonder for espionage
Spies can also be used for visibility (for example indirect fire) they can see 3 tiles.

Naval Comments:
Navies can pillage fishing boats for heath or promote for health.
They can gain support and flanking bonus from embarked units (including in the same tile) and units on land.
An early Naval/embarked unit can really help put a city under siege.
Surprised no-one discussed Jongs. They are just so OP rushed, bought with faith and no nitre requirement.
Naval ranged have a ZOC which makes group combat quite different at sea

Air Forces and Airports
Hangar+Airport = +6 production (+8 Powered or +12 if English) thats a good amount.
Just place jet bombers in your cities, they have the range and are protected there. (jet bombers are really the endgame unit to win fast)
Fighters destroy death robots.
On airships - Drones have 5 visibility and are great visibility units rather than just for ranged.
I have no screenshot but have got a carrier to level 2. No napalm cookies required.

 

[DanQ]

Great content once again

Thank you for thinking about and putting together your points in response to our content for this episode. Some I feel are too specific for a primer, such as references to specific Unique Units or City States for their Suzerainty bonuses, but there are some I want to highlight for reply or simply highlight as supplemental to our coverage (denoted with a "^"):

Espionage Comments:
The intelligence agency give a free spy
You can cancel a mission at any time, you are not committed (just click on the spy unit and cancel action).

^

You did not mention spies give diplomatic visibility levels which affect combat by +3 or +6 - pretty damn vital.

^ (assuming combat is applying for the duration of a Spy's mission, of course)

Spies can also be used for visibility (for example indirect fire) they can see 3 tiles.

^

Naval Comments:
Navies can pillage fishing boats for hea[l]th or promote for health.
They can gain support and flanking bonus from embarked units (including in the same tile) and units on land.

^

Air Forces and Airports [..]
Drones have 5 visibility and are great visibility units rather than just for ranged.

^

I have no screenshot but have got a carrier to level 2. No napalm cookies required.

It's not a consideration of "requirement"...

Did you take the promotion to give you additional aircraft capacity upon reaching Level 2?
How long did it survive after said promotion?

 

[Victoria]

Did you take the promotion to give you additional aircraft capacity upon reaching Level 2?

yes, at was an armada and I only felt it right that it should get more capacity

How long did it survive after said promotion?

Most civs were dead or too damaged. I levelled it up through taking cities and it was built in a seaport with Kabul so it only took a few cities. The XP guide link below explains that taking cities is not capped like combat so you can get serious amounts of XP from any city capture if trained late... and with Kabul. It was a while ago and was doing it for testing patrols from carriers (which still is bad), the AI planes were still grounded at that iteration.

anyway, keep it up....I just supplemented here because others that heard the cast may have found it useful, apologies if it is invasive in any way.

 

[steveg700]

Hey, made me want to tune in.

 

[DanQ]

yes, at was an armada and I only felt it right that it should get more capacity

anyway, keep it up....

I believe the regular co-hosts will reflect my sentiment of appreciation here.

I just supplemented here because others that heard the cast may have found it useful, apologies if it is invasive in any way.

Not invasive, on the contrary: amicable.

Hey, made me want to tune in.

-- did you enjoy the listen as well?

 

[Whiterussian]

Hello All
Really appreciate PolyCast is dellivering content again. Has been missing for me lately.

@DanQ If you want to upgrade a Aircraft Carrier, you can use a Great Admiral if you got one.
Thanks for the cookies

 

[DanQ]

Hello All
Really appreciate PolyCast is dellivering content again. Has been missing for me lately.

Thank you for communicating that. I am glad to be able to be apart of this effort presently.

@DanQ If you want to upgrade a Aircraft Carrier, you can use a Great Admiral if you got one.
Thanks for the cookies

, that's one surefire way around the combat requirement... assuming that GA can confer such a benefit to a unit in retiring, of course.

Forget a screenshot though -- what's needed here is video proof.