Polynesia

[void_genesis]

Just reporting in on a recent Polynesia game I played to completion, King, continents, standard size and speed. I went for a culture victory and won comfortably at turn 320. I had an isolated peninsula to myself and settled three cities, plus two on nearby islands and a third on a distant island with two city states. I filled out tradition, patronage, aesthetics, and dabbled in freedom, rationalism, liberty (for parthenon) and imperialism for the louvre, and got almost all the wonders I wanted (and some I didn't). The maoi were very useful culture farms and made improvement and settling decisions interesting. The later maori warriors were ok, but I didn't get into enough conflict to really know. I was friendly with most of the AI, and allied to all CS by the mid-game without sending out a single purpose built diplomatic unit.

Early exploration let me find all the other AIs by turn 100 or so, so having a really early world council vote was interesting. I can see the maori warrior having a barb hunting role in the obscure unsettled map locations, so the extra strength from being together would make more sense than extra strength from being near the maoi. I think adjusting the AI to be much more likely to declare war over me stealing artifacts was what the game was lacking in the end. I would have loved to have to fight off an angry AI or two as I pushed toward cultural victory.

 

[void_genesis]

Just had another polynesia game and noticed an odd bug (reported in the bug forum but not sure if anyone noticed in the middle of another discussion). My ships lost their sea crossing ability when upgraded from dromon to galleas. I upgraded a dromon on a tiny mid-ocean city and had it stuck for ages.....very annoying. Also noticed the AI were parking archaeologists on top of antiquity sites but not extracting them.......weird.

 

[Edaka]

This is going to be a hate post about moai. I personally think that out of all the UI this one is very situational and luck-dependant.

Naturally, you want to chain as many as possible in a row to get stacking bonuses - the same you would do with farms, ekis and kasbahs to some extent. The latter along wih moai have the strictest terrain requirements to build. I always imagined that kasbahs in CBP connected and gave additional yields to luxury (don't remember if strategic, too) resources because of how frustrating it would be if you were forced to choose between either improving the resource to connect it to your trade network or build the UI that you otherwise don't have many opportunities to build and get the stacking bonus. This is exactly my problem with moai - often times you are screwed by some horses/iron/luxury on a coastal tile that forces you to make this tough choice. One could argue that it's a part of strategy, but it feels punishing, especially when it's one of a civ's uniques that suffers. I can rarely get a long consistent chain of moai going and end up too frustrated to care and eventually ragequit.

 

[Funak]

This is going to be a hate post about moai. I personally think that out of all the UI this one is very situational and luck-dependant.

Naturally, you want to chain as many as possible in a row to get stacking bonuses - the same you would do with farms, ekis and kasbahs to some extent. The latter along wih moai have the strictest terrain requirements to build. I always imagined that kasbahs in CBP connected and gave additional yields to luxury (don't remember if strategic, too) resources because of how frustrating it would be if you were forced to choose between either improving the resource to connect it to your trade network or build the UI that you otherwise don't have many opportunities to build and get the stacking bonus. This is exactly my problem with moai - often times you are screwed by some horses/iron/luxury on a coastal tile that forces you to make this tough choice. One could argue that it's a part of strategy, but it feels punishing, especially when it's one of a civ's uniques that suffers. I can rarely get a long consistent chain of moai going and end up too frustrated to care and eventually ragequit.

The moai is strong, but I really dislike it as well, I understand the logic behind getting bonuses for stacking them, but it just feels way too painful when you're unable to stack them.

 

[Thibaulthc]

I played an almost entire game with Polynesia, Emperor, Huge Shuffle Map, Epic speed;
CP CBP C4 CSD E&D H&P

It was unfortunately way too easy; I have around 150.000 culture, other leaders max 40.000
340 tourism / turn, other leaders max 40...

The Ocean UA was awesome on this map of numerous tiny islands, I discovered all the ruins and CS before everybody. I'm now allied with 22cs on 24...
I also had the same bug with some Galleas

Are the Moai supposed to yield production as well ?? It seemed really OP to have those 3 production in addition of the culture.

The biggest problem on this game was the lack of aggression of the AI. Seemed bugged at some point; I was invading Ramses' island with no resistance, then I discovered a huge fleet of his that never attacked me.. Weird.

Spoiler :

photo libre

Oh yea, I've also had 100 turns of GA lol. That's because of E&D special decision for Polynesia, GA scales with the number of units. Should scale with map size as well. I'll stop playing with E&D, it's fun but unbalanced

 

[Finarvi]

Well you can play on map which doesn't give advantage to your leader to make things more balanced.

Fleet behaviour is strange. AI has been improved especially for naval warfare (if I'm right) so...

 

[Edaka]

I played an almost entire game with Polynesia, Emperor, Huge Shuffle Map, Epic speed;
CP CBP C4 CSD E&D H&P

It was unfortunately way too easy; I have around 150.000 culture, other leaders max 40.000
340 tourism / turn, other leaders max 40...

The Ocean UA was awesome on this map of numerous tiny islands, I discovered all the ruins and CS before everybody. I'm now allied with 22cs on 24...
I also had the same bug with some Galleas

Are the Moai supposed to yield production as well ?? It seemed really OP to have those 3 production in addition of the culture.

The biggest problem on this game was the lack of aggression of the AI. Seemed bugged at some point; I was invading Ramses' island with no resistance, then I discovered a huge fleet of his that never attacked me.. Weird.

Spoiler :

photo libre

Oh yea, I've also had 100 turns of GA lol. That's because of E&D special decision for Polynesia, GA scales with the number of units. Should scale with map size as well. I'll stop playing with E&D, it's fun but unbalanced

In vanilla AI was horrible at island type maps; haven't (and probably won't) tried them with CP.

I agree with Finarvi. Playing Polynesia on island type maps is like playing the Iroquois on Boreal or Arabia on Sandstorm.

 

[Strec]

First I suggest you don't use the ruins when testing civs and balancing. They can't be balanced and introduce a ramdom part that is very big.

I agree other civs are not agressive. Even using 'Aggressive and Expansive AI' I think they are very curious, sometimes thay don't defend at all and let you do what you want, sometimes they attack without enough army and sometime they built army but never attack.

But I think it's a very hard thing to code.

 

[Funak]

First I suggest you don't use the ruins when testing civs and balancing. They can't be balanced and introduce a ramdom part that is very big.

That sounds very boring.
But the main problem here is probably the islandmap, polynesia is way stronger at those, not to mention that most other civs are a lot weaker.

I agree other civs are not agressive. Even using 'Aggressive and Expansive AI' I think they are very curious, sometimes thay don't defend at all and let you do what you want, sometimes they attack without enough army and sometime they built army but never attack.

Not sure if I agree with this, I had 3 ai bullrushing me down in my last game at turn 55.

However it is worth mentioning that the AI are terrible at watermaps

 

[Strec]

Why does UI destroy jungle? Mayan UI don't

 

[Funak]

this UI can be built on top of resources, the mayan ui can't

 

[Strec]

Why Mayan UI can't be build on resource,Polynesian UI can

 

[Funak]

Why Mayan UI can't be build on resource,Polynesian UI can

I know that feel, bro.

 

[tu_79]

It is really annoying. Moais can only be built along the coast. Fine. You need a line to make it shine. Fine. It won't improve the tile a lot, but gives culture that is its main selling point. OK.
So, settle along the coast, buy some tiles because borders don't grow automatically there, and start working on them after more suitable tiles. Sometimes I get even 3 moais in a triangle that improves wonderfully. Inland city? Coastal montain? Bad luck.

Then I find some stone and cows in the coast, and discovered that moais don't give additional bonus to that. Well, don't mind, I'll live with it. Better the culture bonus than some hammers and gold and food.
But later, some coal was discovered just in the middle of tree moais. WTH!, Suddenly I have to lose 8 culture (6 from the middle and 1 for the adjacents) to mine this coal. Ok, calm down, there's still other cities with good culture. And then, I discovered 2 more oil resources, guess where. One just in the middle of a moais triangle and the other in the end of a straigh line of moais. It didn't finish here. Aluminium just spammed in a tiny island where I had a single moai.
Had I tried a culture victory, this would have proved fatal. The defensive bonus is not a relief.

Compare this with just any other Unique Improvement. At least all UI that I have tried allow to pick strategic resources. Denying yourself the resource is not an option. This results in moais being worse and worse as the game progresses. And it already took its time to be decent.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Compare this with just any other Unique Improvement. At least all UI that I have tried allow to pick strategic resources. Denying yourself the resource is not an option. This results in moais being worse and worse as the game progresses. And it already took its time to be decent.

I feel your pain, but that's not true.
The only UI that I am aware of that does connect resources under it is the Chashbah.

 

[tu_79]

I feel your pain, but that's not true.
The only UI that I am aware of that does connect resources under it is the Chashbah.

Kasbahs rocks!

Chateaux are fine, they build next to lux and I usually can build 2-3 around every lux, and move them if I need to pick a resource. The Brazilian woodcamp is just too good, but if I have to lose one to pick a resource, it doesn't mess with adjacents.

I think the main problem is that you need adjacency for moais, and if you need to remove one of them it hurts.

 

[Funak]

I randomed Polynesia and played a few turns of it, map was fairly well-adjusted for the civ, a lot of coast and so on, so the game went rather well, there are three things however that are kinda bothering me so I figured I'd bring them up.

First of all, the ability to build moai on resources still feel really weird. Automated workers are going to completely ignore this feature anyways, and from what I've seen so does the AI when it's playing Polynesia, this is of course limited testing, so I could definitely be wrong.
However, even if the AI used this ability in some rare cases the whole idea of encircling your cattle with big statues feel kinda weird. I know this exists to stop really bad terrain from messing up your moai-lines, but still, maybe we should abandon that idea and balance the improvement out of the realistic view that sometimes cattle stand in the way.

Second, the unique unit just feels really underwhelming. I mean yeah, sure compared to the pikeman, it is a fairly decent improvement, +2 CS and a semi-useful promotion, available earlier. But compared to other unique units it just feels really off.
Compare it for example to the Mohawk, the Mohawk is available 1 tech earlier, have a unique promotion that imho is about as strong. The Mohawk has 2 less CS, and starts with shock 1.
Comparing the Maori warrior to the Danish Berserker, they become available at the same tech, the Berserker requires iron but has 2 more CS 1 more movement,2 promotions that combined are WAY better than the Haka dance and also starts with Shock 1.
Yes, sure it costs Iron, but with the removal of the ironcost from catapults and trebuchets, iron isn't really a problem, most of the time you're going to have some of it and at that point you're probably prioritizing vanilla Longswords over your unique unit.


The third issue has to do with the weirdness that occurs with the imbalance of yields natural wonders, it makes that part of the UA really unstable, which isn't really helping when the rest of the civ is fairly location-dependent. Anyways, this is not the place to discuss natural wonders, and I'm planning to do a writeup about them at some point, so for now just keep this in mind.

 

[void_genesis]

I play a lot of Polynesia and agree they have issues, even though I think they are much better than vanilla already.

For the natural wonder part of the UA I agree that it can be a win button if you can find the great barrier reef on turn 10, which takes some of the satisfaction out of playing the game skilfully. What if you got a different instant yield in all cities for simply discovering natural wonders to encourage exploration and synergise with their early ocean crossing ability? Just a +X whatever yield (maybe varying with the yield on the natural wonder to keep exploring exciting?) scaling by era in every city on discovering a natural wonder. This removes the need to settle all over the place and annoy neighbors or attack random CS to actually get the yields.

For the UU I agree it is pretty poor as well. Maybe give maori the scouts ability to gain experience from exploration? On a melee unit line this could be a pretty interesting to explore the world and return with a highly experienced defensive army.

For the UI the moai are the best part of the civ for me. I would hate to see resource restrictions on them as it is often way better to plant another moai in a strategic location. Is it possible to make them impassable (so land units can't disembark from the sea across them) or less uniquely to do damage on adjacent units? The polynesian playstyle is very much a diplomatic/cultural type civ so they should mostly be fighting defensive wars, so it would be nice if they synergised with that somehow.

 

[Funak]

I play a lot of Polynesia and agree they have issues, even though I think they are much better than vanilla already.

For the natural wonder part of the UA I agree that it can be a win button if you can find the great barrier reef on turn 10, which takes some of the satisfaction out of playing the game skilfully. What if you got a different instant yield in all cities for simply discovering natural wonders to encourage exploration and synergise with their early ocean crossing ability? Just a +X whatever yield (maybe varying with the yield on the natural wonder to keep exploring exciting?) scaling by era in every city on discovering a natural wonder. This removes the need to settle all over the place and annoy neighbors or attack random CS to actually get the yields.

That was not exactly my point. The point was that the 9yield wonders are so much better than the 6yield wonders, on top of the variation of yield quality within each of those groups.

For the UU I agree it is pretty poor as well. Maybe give maori the scouts ability to gain experience from exploration? On a melee unit line this could be a pretty interesting to explore the world and return with a highly experienced defensive army.

They do comes online pretty late for being exploration units, especially considering your scouts and triremes are pretty much unstoppable.
Even if the civ is mostly defensive I'd like to see them be able to actually pick a fight at some point, else they might as well just have a unique civilian.

For the UI the moai are the best part of the civ for me. I would hate to see resource restrictions on them as it is often way better to plant another moai in a strategic location. Is it possible to make them impassable (so land units can't disembark from the sea across them) or less uniquely to do damage on adjacent units? The polynesian playstyle is very much a diplomatic/cultural type civ so they should mostly be fighting defensive wars, so it would be nice if they synergised with that somehow.

I know it's better, but placing stone-statues on cows make little sense and the AI/automated workers doesn't seem to be able to figure it out. I mostly meant having them scale off something else, either higher base-values or maybe get a bonus for each adjacent water-tile, something that makes the beached cows less of a nuisance.
They do already boost defensive warfare by buffing nearby units, I mean that's not exactly massive, but it is something.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the improvement is bad, or that it doesn't work properly, I'm just saying maybe there is a better way to handle it.

 

[Gokudo01]

However, even if the AI used this ability in some rare cases the whole idea of encircling your cattle with big statues feel kinda weird. I know this exists to stop really bad terrain from messing up your moai-lines, but still, maybe we should abandon that idea and balance the improvement out of the realistic view that sometimes cattle stand in the way.

I think it works well as it stands and we shouldn't be trying to fix what is working. Yes it's got some drawback but "the better" is the worst enemy of "the good".(Thomas Aquinas)

Second, the unique unit just feels really underwhelming. I mean yeah, sure compared to the pikeman[...]

I agree this point. You forgot to mention that Maori warriors lose bonus damage against mounted.
maybe some combat bonus while defending ?

The third issue has to do with the weirdness that occurs with the imbalance of yields natural wonders, it makes that part of the UA really unstable, which isn't really helping when the rest of the civ is fairly location-dependent. Anyways, this is not the place to discuss natural wonders, and I'm planning to do a writeup about them at some point, so for now just keep this in mind.

Right

I think Polynesia suffers from some minor issues which can be solved with few tweaks.