Polynesia

[Funak]

Polynesians were sailing around the pacific settling islands before Europeans found the new world. They were most certainly explorers.

So were the Vikings, but not everyone needs an exploration-themed UA .

 

[Gazebo]

So were the Vikings, but not everyone needs an exploration-themed UA .

Vikings were sailing around the Pacific before Europeans found the new world?! I knew it!!

G

 

[Funak]

Vikings were sailing around the Pacific before Europeans found the new world?! I knew it!!

Wouldn't be surprised. Or it could be read as 'Vikings were also most certainly explorers'

 

[tu_79]

The current Spanish UA is kinda fine, other than the irony of the reconquista grants food when in reality it killed a lot of people . Current Portugal and England are pretty fine as well, I don't think another ability triggering off national wonders is necessary, maybe for a custom-civ down the road, if we ever get that started.

Not suggesting such thing

 

[Somohexual]

I love the Maoi so much, but it did feel a bit wrong when I was building them on resources rather than using pastures/mines/etc. What if, maybe, they gave reduced yields when created on a resource tile? You could still "link" them together, but it would change the idea of the Maoi trumping all other tile improvement options.

 

[void_genesis]

I've still been thinking about Polynesia. Would giving double happiness for discovering natural wonders be useful to give them a reason to explore without being overpowered? It would synergise nicely since it would help them expand and settle good island spots early in the game before harbours are available to give city connections.

On that note, could moai be changed so that their bonus is for adjacent ocean tiles, rather than adjacent moai. This would also synergise with colonising tiny islands. You might even be tempted to start them by sailing off the continent to find some tiny islands, maybe a natural wonder. And finally on that note would it be worth considering giving them a late settling bonus to population to allow them to play this way? Maybe capital gains 1 population on settling for every 10 turns after start of the game.

 

[Greggy08]

Played a Game with Polynesia with last version.
I would have loved their new buff... If only it worked. It is just as it was, no production bonus on adjacency. Everything else from the update is working fine. Am I the only one with this bug?

 

[ColonelCarter]

Nope, I tried Polynesia and didn't get production for adjacency either. It showed up as a bonus in the Civilopedia entry though, so I don't know why it doesn't work. Although I think 1 production per adjacency might be a little too much; 1 prod per 2 feels more appropriate to me since except for the ends of single tile peninsulas you can get at least 2 adjacent.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Did you have Masonry? I suspect the hammers from adjacency won't kick in until they're worth hammers at all.

 

[ColonelCarter]

I suspected that too, still didn't kick in. The civilopedia entry says Adjacent Moai: 1 culture 1 production instead of just 1 culture like it used to, but nope.

 

[Gazebo]

Nope, I tried Polynesia and didn't get production for adjacency either. It showed up as a bonus in the Civilopedia entry though, so I don't know why it doesn't work. Although I think 1 production per adjacency might be a little too much; 1 prod per 2 feels more appropriate to me since except for the ends of single tile peninsulas you can get at least 2 adjacent.

I know why, I forgot a change from debug to release. Gotta have that base +1 production on the moai to make it work. Forgot to copy that over.

G

 

[Horvath Broncos]

I feel that the +1 production for each adjacent moai is too powerful. Getting a bunch of 1f 4p 3c tiles and being able to work all of them if you have fishing boat or two seems a bit two much. It is like Eki on steroids. And this all in the ancient era.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I feel that the +1 production for each adjacent moai is too powerful. Getting a bunch of 1f 4p 3c tiles and being able to work all of them if you have fishing boat or two seems a bit two much. It is like Eki on steroids. And this all in the ancient era.

Yeah, this one has the strength of Medieval improvements (and is arguably better than them because +20% CS for nearby infantry). There's no way it's balanced.

In the case of Feitoria, it is even superior to it unless it has both Renaissance upgrades. That's 3 eras later. And Feitoria has real restrictions on where it is put, it can't be adjacent to itself, it can't be on resources...

 

[tu_79]

I feel that the +1 production for each adjacent moai is too powerful. Getting a bunch of 1f 4p 3c tiles and being able to work all of them if you have fishing boat or two seems a bit two much. It is like Eki on steroids. And this all in the ancient era.

You have to broke them later, when coal and oil appears. And finding a wonderful 3 adjacencies tile and settling near that is not as easy as it sounds. I have like 21 cities, and only in 3 of them I managed to build this moai wonders (missing some horses and iron for now).

 

[Horvath Broncos]

You have to broke them later, when coal and oil appears. And finding a wonderful 3 adjacencies tile and settling near that is not as easy as it sounds. I have like 21 cities, and only in 3 of them I managed to build this moai wonders (missing some horses and iron for now).

You get that 1f 4p 3c tile if you have three coastal tiles in a row (that is plains tile with two adjacent moais) . I don't see how that is difficult at all especially since you can scout and settle pretty freely. I have those kinda tiles in pretty much in every city I have. And even if you have to destroy some of them (which isn't that many. I mean how many sources of coal or oil do you ususally really get) in the industrial the "damage" is already done. You have had 4 eras time to snowball thanks to your insane production, culture and thanks to few fishies even growth.

I don't understand balance vice how Moai gets better production boost and culture than Eki which can most of the time be as tricky to build as Moais. I think +1 production per two adjacent Moais would be reasonable seeing how Moai also gets that +1 production pretty early in the tech three.

 

[tu_79]

A civ has to be balanced on their 3 uniques together. Exploring high seas is quite good if you find an unhabited continent, the extra food is fine, but on coasts there is less room for culture things, so the extra culture from the moai is needed. Perhaps we could pass without the extra production, but that's a matter of seeing how it compares as a whole with the other civs.
Is Polynesia always snowballing when you play against them? Is the mid-game snowballing enough to make them win consistently? Or is it just a theoric thought?

I can't answer cause I haven't met them yet, and currently I am playing Polynesia, so I am a little biased...

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

A civ has to be balanced on their 3 uniques together. Exploring high seas is quite good if you find an unhabited continent, the extra food is fine, but on coasts there is less room for culture things, so the extra culture from the moai is needed. Perhaps we could pass without the extra production, but that's a matter of seeing how it compares as a whole with the other civs.
Is Polynesia always snowballing when you play against them? Is the mid-game snowballing enough to make them win consistently? Or is it just a theoric thought?

I can't answer cause I haven't met them yet, and currently I am playing Polynesia, so I am a little biased...

On the coasts there is less room for culture things? What do you mean? You can get all the same buildings and improvements. In fact, you can get strong buildings like Lighthouse, Harbour, etc to get what a land-locked city can get only after lots of worker improvements. They're even stronger if you consider that several sea-only buildings have buffs in some policy trees.

If you mean resources, then they're RNG based - IIRC only a few land resources provide culture, while half of the sea resources does. Pearls do, Corals do, one of them even 5 with monopoly, so I don't see your point here. Whales don't, sure, neither do Crabs, but they give early Science and Food, and you can't really complain about atolls. Regular improvements on land don't provide culture, so it's just resource vs resource. Not to mention land resources can also spawn close to water, so what do you mean by "less room for culture things"? What culture things? I really don't get what you mean.

And yeah in my case, Polynesia always snowballs, unless it starts close to me. It even snowballed before the Production buff though.

I always declare war to constantly pillage their stuff, only moving back slightly to lure the workers into building more of them so I can pillage, wait for catapults/composites and take the city to help me snowball. There's no way stuff like 12 Culture12 Production in a city is balanced in ancient era, and that's why I typically see, if not more. If left alone, they'll use that culture to become strongly ahead in policies while getting all the wonders they get their hands on, like try contesting AI with all its discounts that also gets this much production. It's hard. Not that hard for me as I only play on Emperor because I like comfy games which do not make me feel forced to try my best instead of doing mostly what I please, but still I am always very aggressive against them because otherwise, they'll turn the game into a slog as they spam their +20% CS units endlessly while only getting ahead in culture.

If having an Ancient Era UI superior to or, at worst, equal to Medieval UIs, which can be put in more places than all the medieval era UIs and has way less restrictions is not enough, they also get a 20% CS bonus for all the nearby units. Not only do you have to fight a guy who has several times your Culture and Production (allowing him to spam units), you also need to beat his army which gets a huge fighting bonus. Greater than that of Pocatello's UA.

It's good that his AI is pretty stupid early on, allowing you (the player, because the AI can't do it) to pillage his stuff as the rest of his army is probably away exploring the map. I just send Archers, pillage everything and kill stuff as it comes in boats, sometimes smartly moving away so he builds more Moai so I can get even more bang once I have enough firepower to conquer him.

They get more free production than entire cities tend to do at this point and have Culture comparable to late Classical era (or even medieval era) cities just in a handful of these improvements, how can you even defend it? To add salt to the wound, last patch only buffed them, taking away the less reliable wonder bonus for something way more common, sea resources.


The UA is strong and the only bad part of Polynesia is their Pikeman, and it's not even really bad, just mediocre. It's still 50 times better than the likes of Byzantine Cataphract, and it still gets +20% CS in the coast, so it's actually very strong if you count that (and it's a whole package, so you ought to)

 

[tu_79]

Ok, ok. If that's your experience, they may be a little overpowered.

What I meant by fewer culture tiles is that (with the exception of pearls and corals) you cannot place GPTI on water, or historical landmarks, most my digging sites are on the coast, so my best option is to convert that in artifacts and rebuild the moai.

I like that moais give culture and production. Perhaps production yield would be better not giving adjacency. And the bonus to units can be removed, as I haven't seen much action against a civ that can expand farther without bothering their neighbours.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Ok, ok. If that's your experience, they may be a little overpowered.

What I meant by fewer culture tiles is that (with the exception of pearls and corals) you cannot place GPTI on water, or historical landmarks, most my digging sites are on the coast, so my best option is to convert that in artifacts and rebuild the moai.

I like that moais give culture and production. Perhaps production yield would be better not giving adjacency. And the bonus to units can be removed, as I haven't seen much action against a civ that can expand farther without bothering their neighbours.

You still should have more than enough land tiles to place GP improvements anyway, unless you're playing on a weirdly snaky archipelago. You still have land tiles as Polynesia - it's not like Kamehameha's UA says "thou shalt not work any land tiles besides coastal tiles" - just expend the GP on one of the land tiles that is not coastal to not waste a Moai. Maybe on a land hill, maybe on a grassland, maybe on a flood plain, whatever, just not coastal. You should always have enough space to settle more of those and if you don't, well, then you would be way worse off as any other civ anyway, and I find it hard to believe none of your cities have any space for a great improvement.

You'll likely not turn every tile of one city alone into GPIs, and if you do - you have more cities anyway. Settle the GPI there. I see no weakness here. I can always find spots to settle my GP as any coastal civ in my capital alone (granted I go Authority, but even Tradition shouldn't go one city only). Not to mention settling GPIs is pretty much just a bad idea after Renaissance, and I typically only settle them on Emperor in such late eras to not get ahead of the AI too suddenly.

Most digging sites being on coast is RNG, and you can still rebuild them after getting the artifact. At that point you'll still lose XCXP for a few turns, but it's really not as significant in Industrial Era. I don't see the problem with the most OP, strongest and one of the earliest UI in the game losing power for a few turns in the industrial era, especially since it can affect all the UI, so all of them have to be rebuilt if they, unfortunately, are on an artefact, so it's a problem for all the Improvements and UIs, and GPIs too, not something in any way unique to Kamehameha.


IMHO Moai should have no Production adjacency bonus, and only 1 Culture for 2 adjacent Moais, just like other adjacency UIs get stuff only for 2. This way it'd be more comparable to the likes of Eki, which are in the same era after all. It'd still be superior (Eki can't be on a sheep, Moai can, Eki doesn't get 20% CS, Moai does), but not a free Ancient Era UI better than Great Person Improvements and UIs 2-3 eras later.

I mean it can get you 4P 3C early. At that point in the game, Engineer's manufactory can give you just 5 Production and no magical 20% CS bonus

 

[mikes61293]

IMHO Moai should have no Production adjacency bonus, and only 1 Culture for 2 adjacent Moais, just like other adjacency UIs get stuff only for 2. This way it'd be more comparable to the likes of Eki, which are in the same era after all. It'd still be superior (Eki can't be on a sheep, Moai can, Eki doesn't get 20% CS, Moai does), but not a free Ancient Era UI better than Great Person Improvements and UIs 2-3 eras later.

I mean it can get you 4P 3C early. At that point in the game, Engineer's manufactory can give you just 5 Production and no magical 20% CS bonus

I agree, the adjacent production needs to be dropped. I'd like to see the adjacency bonuses dropped all together. Instead, give it bonus production/ culture for each adjacent water tile. It would make settling small island chains more appealing.