Spain's UA a little too good?

[nefloyd]

Heh. So fountain of youth's 10 happiness bonus IS doubled. Controlling that tile is basically auto-win, the only one I'd say really is. Double heal rate (extremely useful now), just need to funnel all your units to it at one point. 20 happiness lets me pump 4 or 5 extra cities right away... 500 gold just for finding it and 8 faith if I work it. golly.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Heh. So fountain of youth's 10 happiness bonus IS doubled. Controlling that tile is basically auto-win, the only one I'd say really is. Double heal rate (extremely useful now), just need to funnel all your units to it at one point. 20 happiness lets me pump 4 or 5 extra cities right away... 500 gold just for finding it and 8 faith if I work it. golly.

Other civs still get 10 happines for fountain of youth which is allready very good. It could be said that the bonus is equal to five circues (ten for Span) however the fountain of youth bonus is free but you are probably more likely to be able to build five to ten circuse then you are to get fountain of youth but if you get it it can make your game far easier. But easier way to an auto win exist in the game.

 

[ossi]

In the meantime the spanish bonus for discovering natural wonders seems to be reduced from 500 to 250! At least at marathon speed this is totally UNDER-powered compared to Askia who gets 450 (Settler) or 225 (Deity) for destroying a barbs camp! And there are just finite many natural wonders which you even have to find first, but infinite many camps! So at least the speed modifier should be applied to the wonder-finding bonus of spain!

 

[Sherlock]

They have a guy on a horse who can found a city.

That's just so cool. I flipped out the first time I noticed the 'found city' button on the Conquistador.

 

[JanghanHong]

they have a guy on a horse who can found a city.

That's just so cool. I flipped out the first time i noticed the 'found city' button on the conquistador.

we are the knights who settle ni

 

[ahawk]

It's a fairly hit-or-miss UA. I've played as Spain and because of terrain (hills, mountains, whatever) not had an easy time exploring the area around me and missed out on finding any natural wonders before someone else. I've also had the exact opposite: open terrain, El Dorado not so far off, and a second natural wonder I found first besides El Dorado! That's 1,500 gold (El Dorado's normal gold boost plus Spain's UA grants 1,000).

The tile bonus is an after thought. It's very powerful if you can get a natural wonder in your borders in the early or mid-game, but that's a tall order much of the time due to CS's often being adjacent to or close to the bulk of the natural wonders.

As a few have already pointed out, just having 500 extra gold almost every game is a huge boost (basically a free Settler very early on). But because the tile bonus is hard to get, and because the UA is the only unique boost to Spain's economy, it's not a UA that is completely over-powered. After all, a free settler early on is a great thing, but once you plant that settler, that might be the last good boost you ever get from the Spanish UA, because you might not find any other wonders first after the initial one, and you might never get a natural wonder in your borders (unless you take that free settler and march it across the map, far from you capital, to claim that wonder that gave you 500 gold... which is dangerous, splitting yourself apart like that).

 

[Adjuvant]

it's funny to see people play spain like this in mp. they think "ha! i found 2 natural wonders, i will buy settlers and have an early lead!"

then they're a target. should have bought 1 settler and spent the rest on workers/archers. no one ever does that.

 

[Silverfuturist]

it's funny to see people play spain like this in mp. they think "ha! i found 2 natural wonders, i will buy settlers and have an early lead!"

then they're a target. should have bought 1 settler and spent the rest on workers/archers. no one ever does that.

3 cities can make 3 units at once... 1 city can make 1 unit at once... that early in the game you are the target... maybe you are playing vs noobs if it never occurs to them to build some units.

 

[nefloyd]

Dream Spain game : find settle-able barrier reef and fountain of youth locations first within the first 30 turns

Would be a lot of war as I expanded like mad

 

[Adjuvant]

3 cities can make 3 units at once and pay for.. what with little infrastructure and 2 or 3 neighbors conspiring against you because you're obviously on a road to win.

you're being a little extreme with "1 city making one unit" and i think the concept "people won't gang up on you if they see what you're doing" is new. maybe you play against new people, or maybe you play alot of 1v1 as spain. i wouldn't walk into that as your opponent because i'm not new.

 

[Silverfuturist]

3 cities can make 3 units at once and pay for.. what with little infrastructure and 2 or 3 neighbors conspiring against you because you're obviously on a road to win.

you're being a little extreme with "1 city making one unit" and i think the concept "people won't gang up on you if they see what you're doing" is new. maybe you play against new people, or maybe you play alot of 1v1 as spain. i wouldn't walk into that as your opponent because i'm not new.

I play NQ and the League, I was top 5 in the League at one time, the level of play at these places is head and shoulders above anything else MP.

 

[ahawk]

Even in single-player, playing Immortal or Deity, you'd be hard pressed to plant those 2 quick settlers and not lose at least one of your new cities to an AI. I can imagine MP would be far worse trying to defend all those cities (rarely play MP myself).

 

[Silverfuturist]

Even in single-player, playing Immortal or Deity, you'd be hard pressed to plant those 2 quick settlers and not lose at least one of your new cities to an AI. I can imagine MP would be far worse trying to defend all those cities (rarely play MP myself).

In MP all humans start out with the same settler/warrior, there is no instant gold from raping the AI with ridic trading deals, the other players don't get crazy advantages like the higher level AI. With your early insta-cities as Spain, you have the dominant position - where are these armies going to come from to take your new city(s)? If a player wants to build units to attack you, thanks to F9 you can see their progress and also build some units.

 

[ahawk]

In MP all humans start out with the same settler/warrior, there is no instant gold from raping the AI with ridic trading deals, the other players don't get crazy advantages like the higher level AI. With your early insta-cities as Spain, you have the dominant position - where are these armies going to come from to take your new city(s)? If a player wants to build units to attack you, thanks to F9 you can see their progress and also build some units.

All good points, but at the same time, MP has much smarter opponent(s) in terms of conspiring against you. In a game with AI's and just one other human opponent, that human opponent can also use various game mechanics to know you have that many cities, and, wa-la, that human opponent bribes another AI (or several, if given enough time) into war against you and doesn't need to build an impossibly large army themselves.

And in a game with only human opponents, this goes doubly.

The only situation that really applies to what you're saying is 1v1 MP with no AI's. In that case, you're right, it's a straight-up balanced game where Spain getting 2 early cities would be a huge boost that would be hard to take away. In that case, 1v1 MP probably is easier as Spain than single-player Deity or Immortal. But in all other cases (MP with AI's, MP with more than 2 players), I would imagine that MP would be harder because human opponents are more likely to conspire against you or to attack you simultaneously by coincidence even, much more likely than AI's that you can basically cheat for gold through shoddy diplomacy.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I personally don't like Spains UA. I know people say "well, that's the only thing they get, so I guess 500 gold per wonder is ok" but It seems like so much of a gamble that it shouldn't be even viable. I don't know what to think of it, really. I mean, if you find GBR and El Dorado within the first couple of turns on diety, how can you call that a good game? It's like a ram rush as Atilla. You might get away with it, but it's a hollow victory imo. But hey, to each his own.

 

[Koiranputki]

I personally don't like Spains UA. I know people say "well, that's the only thing they get, so I guess 500 gold per wonder is ok" but It seems like so much of a gamble that it shouldn't be even viable. I don't know what to think of it, really. I mean, if you find GBR and El Dorado within the first couple of turns on diety, how can you call that a good game? It's like a ram rush as Atilla. You might get away with it, but it's a hollow victory imo. But hey, to each his own.

I don't know if it should be called a "hollow victory"...anymore than some of the other victories...like one recent game where Attila who declared war on me, playing as the Mongols, thwarted his onslaught... I rush built a few units...and he sued for peace giving me a ridiculous amount of Gold and other benefits...all out of proportion to my "victory"....the Gold he gave was about 4700 plus some Gold per turn plus a couple of Luxuries... I went on a buying spree after that... But my eventual victory did feel kind of "hollow"... It was just too easy... I think sometimes games just turn out that way whatever the UAs of the particular civ you are playing...

At the moment I'm playing as Spain and I was the first to find three wonders...Sri Pada, Old Faithful and Gibraltar....and two of these wonders I was easily able to incorporate into two cities.....

Also all the Gold allowed me to rush build some units after Oda declared war...which must have thrown off his calculations....he eventually gave up and offered another ridiculous peace settlement...not as stupid as the one Attila offered.... so maybe having all that spare cash as Isabella can sometimes cause the AI to miscalculate your potential strength...

 

[godman85]

you guys might get mad at me. On my imortal game i had 3 wonder literally right next to each other right at the start. I founded my capital on old faithful, second city on grand mesa, third on the crater. Literally the most broken . I had 4 cities by turn 15

If you guys want the original save let me know.

 

[Silverfuturist]

All good points, but at the same time, MP has much smarter opponent(s) in terms of conspiring against you. In a game with AI's and just one other human opponent, that human opponent can also use various game mechanics to know you have that many cities, and, wa-la, that human opponent bribes another AI (or several, if given enough time) into war against you and doesn't need to build an impossibly large army themselves.

And in a game with only human opponents, this goes doubly.

The only situation that really applies to what you're saying is 1v1 MP with no AI's. In that case, you're right, it's a straight-up balanced game where Spain getting 2 early cities would be a huge boost that would be hard to take away. In that case, 1v1 MP probably is easier as Spain than single-player Deity or Immortal. But in all other cases (MP with AI's, MP with more than 2 players), I would imagine that MP would be harder because human opponents are more likely to conspire against you or to attack you simultaneously by coincidence even, much more likely than AI's that you can basically cheat for gold through shoddy diplomacy.

What you are saying follows a logical path and used sound thinking. What I am saying is based upon games comprised of all strong players, practive vs theory.

 

[johnny_rudeboy]

Hi, first time poster and civ fanatic (since the last couple of months)

I dont think Spain is OP, like ppl above already said. If they get lucky they are, if not they might get crushed early on.
I started a save as Spain but did not find my first NW until turn 80-100 on normal speed, and no. I was not the first to find it. That game did not go so well and that NW was already within a CS borders.
I tried another game, and did find a NW for my 2nd city, the Barring Crater but that city (Barcelona) was pretty far away from Madrid and I found it and settled near it pretty late (first to find it however) and since Germany was my next door neighbour and I had rampaging barbs on he eventually used his converted army and a ton of landsknechtes to wipe me out. And this was when I just had build my first couple of conquistadors and was 20 turns away from reaching astronomy.

I have tried a couple of other games since then (play like 20 turns to see what I find) but no luck. Until yesterday. I managed to find TGBR x2, giving me 1000 gold, food, hammers, gold and science on turn 5 (I decided to wander around with my settler). Then once I started to set that city up quickly build a shrine to get One with Nature and also build a trireme who 5 turns later discovered Mt Kailash (6 fp and 2 ) as the first civ to do so.

I used my saved cashed to buy a settler and 15 turns later Barcelona became a religious power house. Madrid and Barcelona are placed on two separate peninsulas at the north of a continent. Barcelona is not accessible unless you have a boat since there is a mountain ridge in the way. Probably how I managed to find it first 40+ turns in to the game. So cant build a road between my cities but I will soon get to build harbours and would have used that anyway since having a 20+ tile road seem a bit to much. I play on a medium sized map and on King so I guess there is 2 or 3 more NW to discover and even do I dont guess to get this lucky again to find them first, I have already claimed 3 and with One with nature and Holy warriors I will make sure to get what is rightfully mine.

Since it is still early day in my current save I still think I can easily win any way I want to (depending on who else is in the game, I have meet Brazil and mr Khan so far).

 

[Atinuviel]

Having played Spain in probably well over 100 games in the past few weeks and won with every kind of victories imaginable, (my favorite being a turn 108 victory with Sacred Site), I don't think Spain is OP. They're decent to above average, it's just that they swing very heavily depending on their opening.

If you fail to be the first to find any Natural Wonders first, their UA works out to 500g (or 600g if there is GBR) and an additional 5 happiness since the happiness bonus for finding NW is also doubled. Considering that's an extra 1.25 luxury and that bonus gold often comes in the early game, it's actually not too bad and could very well go toward something useful in the beginning. Still underwhelming though.

But if you're able to find even just ONE NW first, then Spain's UA jumps from being mediocre to good. You don't even have to settle that NW. That 500g can go toward a buying a settler early and grab the strategic and most valuable location, or you can just as well build a settler and quick buy a library, allowing early completion of the National College. As a third option, bonus archers never hurt.

Now when you can settle a NW, that's when Spain jumps from ok to a top-tier competitor. NWs are unpassable terrain, so you can easily rely on a NW to make a chokepoint city in otherwise difficult to defend positions. If it's a food wonder, your expansion just becomes set on a path to rapid growth.

Spain is a very hit or miss Civilization, and throughout my games I've had multiple experience in every single one of the scenarios I've just mentioned. But even at their worst, they still function decently as long as you use that early gold well.