Polynesia

[CrabHelmet]

Yep, I know. But if you are settling mini-islands, you are absolutely production starved. +1 on unimproved Fish and +3 on improved Fish (1 from UA, 1 from Fishing Boat, 1 base) is enough to make it viable. 4 Fish and you have 12, which is enough to get a City off the ground in early game until you can get to Specialists.

 

[Stalker0]

I like the idea of Moais getting coastal bonus instead of adjacency, as I do agree their flavor is a bit weird there.

I don't like switching the fish bonus to production. That is Polynesia's thing, tons of food, little hammers. They have to focus their playstyle to compensate for that, which is part of their uniqueness. Otherwise they are simply MORE FISH MORE HAMMERS.

 

[tu_79]

Yep, I know. But if you are settling mini-islands, you are absolutely production starved. +1 on unimproved Fish and +3 on improved Fish (1 from UA, 1 from Fishing Boat, 1 base) is enough to make it viable. 4 Fish and you have 12, which is enough to get a City off the ground in early game until you can get to Specialists.

I was talking about the effect of golden ages. In your case, you have 4 fishes with 3 production each one, and probably +1 gold once you build the lighthouse. In a golden age you get one more production and one more gold, so that's 4 production and 4 gold more. And only +1 gold in the other sea tiles. But if you have +1 production in all sea tiles, you get another +1 production on all sea tiles during golden ages.
In your 1 tile island case with 4 fishes, you have 12 production, 4 gold, and then nothing but food until harbors. And 4 fishes is a generous start for a tiny island.
Consider a city of 8 population in a tiny island with a lighthouse built. Ignoring food, a city gains,
Crabs' proposal with 4 fishes: +12 +8. +16 + 16 during GA.
Tu's proposal with 4 fishes: +12 +8. +20 +16 during GA.
Crab's proposal with no resources: +8. +16 during GA.
Tu's proposal with no resources: +8 +8.+16 +16 during GA.

I know you all like giving bonuses to resources, and I usually approuve. This gives a reason for chasing those resources. But seriously, fish is very map dependent, and the biggest flaw of Polynesia is its dependence on maps. In Communitas you rarely see more than 2 fishes in a good settling spot, and only 1 in 3 coastal cities has any sea resource at all. In Continents+ they are plenty. But sea tiles can be found in any map script, roughly at the same rate.

 

[Gazebo]

I really feel like this is a solution looking for a problem. Polynesia performs perfectly well right now.

 

[tu_79]

That is Polynesia's thing, tons of food, little hammers.

What I dislike is how fish is so map dependent, I have not a problem with Polynesia being food or production. It would be fine if the UA gave +1 food to all water tiles instead of the bonus on fish. Polynesia will not be able to settle on tiny islands since the beginning, but as I said, this is not my main complaint.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I really feel like this is a solution looking for a problem. Polynesia performs perfectly well right now.

For the AI, maybe. For the player, they're too variable to be considered closed, IMO.

 

[pineappledan]

Every 3 coastal or ocean is very little. You need your city to have 3 pop before it gets the benefit, then 6, but probably 7 if you start working a specialist, then 10 or 11, since you will be working 1 or 2 specialist. And have those 9 tiles be worthy to work on the first place. Coastal with moai will be worthy (3 to 6 tiles) but the same cannot be said about ocean.

If it’s too weak, you could make it every 2 ocean tiles instead. Obviously I haven’t tested the balance on this yet, but I don’t want it to just be bonus on ocean tile; that’s basically Carthage.

I dont get why you guys are saying polynesia doesn’t have production. Moais give tons of production. Polynesia is food, prod and culture. And no, doing an adjacency based on ocean rather than to other Moai is silly; it wrecks the flavour of the moai and its IRL equivalent.

 

[tu_79]

If it’s too weak, you could make it every 2 ocean tiles instead. Obviously I haven’t tested the balance on this yet, but I don’t want it to just be bonus on ocean tile; that’s basically Carthage.

I dont get why you guys are saying polynesia doesn’t have production. Moais give tons of production. Polynesia is food, prod and culture. And no, doing an adjacency based on ocean rather than to other Moai is silly; it wrecks the flavour of the moai and its IRL equivalent.

Yes, 1 every two sea tiles can be.

Carthage is settling in coast. Polynesia can settle 1 tile inland losing little bonuses if there are no sea resources. Polynesia is the other maritime civ, but its flavor is different from Carthage. The former gets production and culture, the latter gets gold.

The thing with production is just for a different flavor of being able to settle tiny islands really early (Crabs idea). I don't really mind this. What I mind is how different fish resources and coastal shapes are from one map script to the other. This makes Polynesia a very random civ depending on what map you use.
I was offering ideas on how to reduce this randomness without changing its flavor.

 

[void_genesis]

I have been playing a lot of Polynesia to build myself up to immortal level play and making progress, but I agree about it being a very map dependent civ. That isn't necessarily a bad thing since you can scout the ocean better than anyone else to find the best spots. One thing that could help a lot would be to increase the visibility range on embarked units even more, or at least make the increase visibility range promotions on the recon units also apply when embarked. I think my problem is more with the communitas map script that is very stingy in spawning spare luxury resources on spare land close to clusters of mid ocean city states. One tile clusters of islands are usually rich in fish and atolls so can be worth settling as you get a long period of time to develop them before the AI can attack them, and by then you should have a superior navy. I am trying a peaceful tall tradition game currently with three pantheon enhanced wheat farms in my capital and it is going pretty well. Mostly settling in the middle of the ocean keeps neighbours friendly (provided they have more serious enemies to worry about).

 

[CrazyG]

I think we could change the +2 food on fishing boats to +1 or +2 hammers. Those island cities often have tons of food but no hammers. This helps cities that cannot build many Moai have decent production, and have less of a high roll impact.

 

[void_genesis]

Is there a way to stack a different bonus on moai when they are on tiny islands? Often you find a few small specks of land that you can settle earlier than anyone else, but the terrain gives almost zero potential for using moai clusters. Maybe in addition to +1C for each adjacent moai you could have +1 hammer for every two adjacent sea tiles. A single isolated island hex within working range of your city would get a maximum of +3 hammers then.

 

[tu_79]

Maybe in addition to +1C for each adjacent moai you could have +1 hammer for every two adjacent sea tiles

This is exactly what I proposed for moiais not being so map dependent.

 

[Stalker0]

This is exactly what I proposed for moiais not being so map dependent.

Thing is though that change isn't a change as much as a straight buff, and I don't think Poly needs any buffing. If you want to change the Maoi to use the coast instead of other Maoi, I can get on board. But I don't think its a cake and eat it too scenario, one or the other is plenty good.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I think we could change the +2 food on fishing boats to +1 or +2 hammers. Those island cities often have tons of food but no hammers. This helps cities that cannot build many Moai have decent production, and have less of a high roll impact.

If you apply this to Coastal Luxuries, though, every now and again Polynesia will turn into a complete monster. I really think any bonus ought to be restricted to Fish and Atolls. The reason talk sparked up again was after all to reduce variance.

What did you think of +1 Production on Fish and Atolls, +1 Production +2 Golden Age points on improved Fish, combined with Fishing Boats on melee land units?

 

[CrazyG]

If you apply this to Coastal Luxuries, though, every now and again Polynesia will turn into a complete monster. I really think any bonus ought to be restricted to Fish and Atolls. The reason talk sparked up again was after all to reduce variance.

What did you think of +1 Production on Fish and Atolls, +1 Production +2 Golden Age points on improved Fish, combined with Fishing Boats on melee land units?

I think golden age points on fish would be really weird.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I think golden age points on fish would be really weird.

I grew up in New Zealand. The importance of a successful fishing expedition to the coastal Maori iwi was enormously important. Control over the most abundant fishing grounds determined the balance of local power, and abundant seasons often marked periods of expansion and tributary raids to give young men something to do in periods of excess. It seems to fit flavour wise to me.

 

[pineappledan]

Except Polynesia isn’t a GA civ.

This is getting sillier and sillier. No thanks.

 

[CrabHelmet]

It definitely is. It's a Progress Civ, it thrives on GAs and really struggles to keep infrastructure looking tidy without them. I would go so far as to say you're not doing Polynesia right if you're not focusing on GAs.

 

[void_genesis]

Wouldn't the golden age position be more relevant for civs that have a gold yielding UI? Moai only give culture and production. Your ability to settle isolated islands early means you can turn them into gold profitable centres early on before any AI can even think about attacking them.

 

[CrazyG]

You should have pretty good production given that Moai have production.