Recruit Partisans - Changed in Oct Update

[civfan_999]

I've never understood the issue with the recruit partisans spy mission. Yes, the AI likes to do that one and late game it usually spawns two tanks that run around and plunder things if you don't have home base defense, but I've always thought of that as a reason to leave some military units at home for defense, not a reason not to build neighborhoods.

Nevertheless, I have read lots of comments on this site from people who hated this mission. I wonder if those people think this update had fixed the issues?

The mission now pillages the neighborhood and spawns two anti-cav units.

I'm not sure I get how this fixes the issue, though I've not sure I understood the original issue either, so would love to hear comments.

 

[Sostratus]

Housing has become more available than it used to on release. This has made neighborhoods less and less necessary over time for high level play. Neighborhoods cost Production, and often there are other things you might want to make with those hammers.
So many players face a choice:
If i make neighborhoods, I will have to contend with frequent partisans because the Ai loves this mission
If I don't make neighborhoods, I can work around housing in other ways and focus spies on districts like IZs or spaceports.

All the district missions pillage the district, but only Partisans spawns enemy units. Admittedly, when it made tanks that would zip around and kill traders immediately, that was extremely annoying. The AI production value generated by partisans was extraordinary - 3 modern armors are worth over 2,000 hammers. Plus the 1-2 traders or whatever else they manage to smash because they spawn with full movement.

3 Modern AT will be 1740, plus the district clocking in around 200ish, for about 2000 production value from this mission. Pillaging an IZ or dam is much less impactful.

We also have to understand that the AI spies will swarm the player, so there is a "player vs everyone else" perspective that is not present when analyzing spy missions from a "one player entity vs one other player entity" MP or abstract viewpoint. On a standard size map you are going to get partisans constantly.

I'm going to frame this differently. A somewhat cemented exchange is that 1 = 4. Imagine if you could run a spy mission in neighborhoods that gave you 8,000 every time it succeeded. Would you ever want to make neighborhoods to allow enemy spies access to this?

What they should have done, in my opinion, is had it always pillage the district upon success, but if the city loyalty or amenity level is low spawn partisan units. And stop making it the AI's favorite mission. At least I can anticipate magnus getting assassinated or my top IZ having bombs planted, but every neighborhood producing the same result, which is way out of line with what other missions do, is often not worth the effort. Again, its not like neighborhoods are needed. If you pack cities tight, build Aqueducts and sewers, and maybe run a card, you can get it done without much worry.

 

[Galvatron]

I've never understood the issue with the recruit partisans spy mission. Yes, the AI likes to do that one and late game it usually spawns two tanks that run around and plunder things if you don't have home base defense, but I've always thought of that as a reason to leave some military units at home for defense, not a reason not to build neighborhoods.

I'm not sure I get how this fixes the issue, though I've not sure I understood the original issue either, so would love to hear comments.

Well to put it in simple terms:

1. The mission vulnerability is weighed against the value of the neighborhood. The neighborhood SUCKS, which means that the vulnerability can only be very small, if anything. The partisan requires significant investment to secure against, like you laid out ir makes you need a whole military, so it makes the neighborhood by extension a net liability

2. The mission frequently spawns advanced units with phasers, which puts the threat way out of proportion, even if it made sense to begin with.

I think the issue is fixed now though.

 

[civfan_999]

What they should have done, in my opinion, is had it always pillage the district upon success, but if the city loyalty or amenity level is low spawn partisan units.

I've heard variations of this proposal before. I had supported a version where the chance of success depended on amenities and housing in the city, i.e. if housing is 20/18 then the likelihood should increase. I supported this where housing and amenities could be used to completely block the spy mission. My suggestion was that where housing is sufficient (i.e. 20/20 would be good enough, but 21/20 is not sufficient) and the city is happy (+3 amenities now) the mission would have a 0% chance of success.

3 modern armors are worth over 2,000 hammers. Plus the 1-2 traders or whatever else they manage to smash because they spawn with full movement.

This is an interesting way to think about it though. This helps to put the concern in perspective. Though, I don't think I often loose traders to these barbs; Typically they would pillage a few tiles before I had a chance to kill them.

The neighborhood SUCKS

I clearly play this game differently than others. I build a wide empire with tall cities. More people means more science, more culture, more production, ect. So I settle my cities 5-8 tiles apart from each other to take advantage of the 3 tile radius they will eventually grow to and build neighborhoods to support growth so the good cities can get up to 18-24 people each. Those are the cities that are supporting my empire with science, culture, gold, having lots of districts, and the ability to make any units I need really fast.

I haven't play him in a long time, but Kongo is one of my favorite civs. You get neighborhoods earlier and for cheaper and they are always worth 5 housing, which absolutely skyrockets growth in your empire.

 

[criZp]

you get more science and culture from spamming districts rather than actually populating your cities

 

[Lord Lakely]

I disagree. Campuses only outscience population if you have one in every city (which is an amount of science you simply don't need.) Population usually generates more science and culture than districts do, but not because of the size of your cities. The number of cities you possess is more critical, regardless of whether those cities have a Campus or not.

So basically, spamming cities everywhere nets an absurd about of science/culture that outtechs most AIs that aren't investing in it. For those that do, you'll need campuses (in about a third of your cities + pingala). The religious belief that grants science per follower is also incredibly useful in that regard.

 

[Galvatron]

I disagree. Campuses only outscience population if you have one in every city (which is an amount of science you simply don't need.) ...

I believe that is what the kids call 'spam'

 

[criZp]

Saying that you don't _need_ as much science as you can get basically invalidates the opinion as far as I'm concerned. If you want to get ahead of the competitors then you want as much as possible, obviously.

 

[civfan_999]

Population usually generates more science and culture than districts do, but not because of the size of your cities. The number of cities you possess is more critical

" Science is mainly earned from population and the Campus district. As of the February 7, 2018 Update, each Citizen of a city yields 0.5 Science (with or without the Campus district)" --- https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Science_(Civ6)

Science comes from the population, not the city. Granted cities have population, but I don't agree with this quote that the number of cities is more important than the population of the cities as it relates to the science per turn.