The Lanun - overpowered? If only the AI used pirate coves...

[slowcar]

while the lanun are very fast in research they usually lack production. a lot. in mp games you can usually rush them midgame with enough collatteral.
sea cities with ritualists are very evil - but that is not something lanun-only.
gotn is better denied to any lanun-player, if they start converting commerce to military it can get ugly, as they are usually a tier ahead.

the only thing i really dread are human-played lanun sea invasions. not much you can do to prevent your costal cities against getting razed. but that's fine for me if i know what i am up against - and AI lanun still can't do anything useful with ships.

 

[Senethro]

I prefer Mobility promoted Stygs and Cultists. Tsunami is so powerful that they'll all win fights and gain XP without Combat promotions. Fast moving, fast healing, fast XP gain. Mop up the coast and head to the interior.

 

[Earthling]

You have to be really carefull comparing traits. Some traits are obviously better than others, but traits aren't meant to be balanced, insted you should ask yourself does this trait make this Civ overpowered?

Now if every Civ that has the finacial trait is overpowered because of this, then yes maybe it should get nerfed, i dont think this is the case with Financial.

Really? IIRC, Hannah, Flauros, and two of the dwarves are the ones with Financial. I think Flauros of Calabaim is generally recognized to be very strong all around, and the dwarves with Kilmorph also get a ridiculous economy. For instance, I'd much rather choose the leader that has financial vs. industrious (I think it's Beeri). Financial on its own isn't necesssarily better than a trait like, say, Raiders, or Arcane - but the civs it is combined with seem to consistently be very powerful. I also think it's just odd that this trait is virtually unchanged from civ4, while everything else has pretty much clear balance differences. Financial sure seems to guarantee a lot - survive an early rush and you're solid.

I also seem to routinely see the adaptive leaders (Gossam, Lorda) even choose financial often enough (and it is recommended by people on here too).

Finally, I know that almost everyone is aware of this but one thing that I think is tough for the AI Lanun is that almost no AI ever adopts OO. So even when the Lanun do, and that's not all the time, they become alone with no friends in diplomacy...

 

[WarKirby]

So even when the Lanun do, and that's not all the time, they become alone with no friends in diplomacy...

And noone to steal their religious heroes, and noone else with waterwalkiing priests

 

[zup]

And waterwalking demons to shrug off armageddon like it never happened.

 

[Breez]

<-- NEWB

What is a pirate Cove? A building in the city? or a tile improvement? If it is a tile improvement how does it work?

 

[Grey Fox]

You build it on a coastal tile not within 3 tiles of another pirate cove with a work boat.

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

Where abouts can you find the code for this? I remember an old thread about changing the distance the coves can be apart. I know they've been set this way because of possible bugs, but I'm curious to find where this is again

 

[Onionsoilder]

I think financial would be fine if it gave 0.5 on plots with 2, instead of giving 1.

Might be too complicated to mod in. Could be easier to make it give 1 on plots with 3 (Instead of 2). That way hamlets+, commerce resources, etc still get the full bonus, but riverside lumbermills/windmills and more importantly, ocean tiles, do not.

 

[Lone Wolf]

but riverside lumbermills/windmills and more importantly, ocean tiles, do not.

And Aristo farms, unless next to a river.

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

Wait, I didn't necro this thread to start up the discussion again!

 

[Worm4life]

You have to be really carefull comparing traits. Some traits are obviously better than others, but traits aren't meant to be balanced, insted you should ask yourself does this trait make this Civ overpowered?

Now if every Civ that has the finacial trait is overpowered because of this, then yes maybe it should get nerfed, i dont think this is the case with Financial.

Then it's definitely overpowered with the Lanun. Every water tile gives at least 2 commerce.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

only coast, ocean gives 1

 

[smana]

the best strategy that i tried and ended up conquering the doviello, cabalim, and clan of embers wiht minimal losses is first send in the ships when invading people, then, hopefully you have OO, send in your drowns/ cultists/speakers/stygnian guard, without ships, and have ships with land bassed units with amphibious come in. Always remember though to send in the assasins, to stop harmful mages. This way you will be in control of the fight and will only have to attack when you have the odds stacked for you. I beat all of them outnumbered 10:1 with no losses.

 

[smana]

afsda

 

[Tasunke]

Lanun economy is Overpowered, imho, because Pirate coves grow into full Pirate Ports pretty quickly, and do so even if they are not being worked. In a large-Islands or Continents game, where each civ gets one land mass, Lanun pirate cove economy + decent inland econ will beat a Calabim aristo-grarian economy (usually).

I think if you removed the "upgrade even without being worked" and added maybe 5 turns extra to each "phase" of the pirate cove improvement upgrade, it would be a little better. (or even add more turns than 5 ... some would say double the time it takes, but I think that would be too much of a nerf once all is said and done)

 

[Tholal]

To answer the concern in the original post, the AI has been capable of building Pirate Coves for quite a while now.

As far as Pirate Ports being overpowered, I thought that was the whole point of FFH? That every civ was overpowered in some way. Balance via imbalance. The main drawback of Pirate ports is their vulnerability. If you can get a couple of ships in there to pillage them, it's pretty easy to ruin the Lanun's day, while raking in some nice cash for yourself.

 

[Tasunke]

Yes I suppose, but I was at least Hypothesizing that Pirate Ports (or at least the rate at which they develop) could possibly be "more than" alt-balanced, into true overpoweredness (at least to a degree).

Maybe not to the same degree as Chalid or Nox Noctis, but still something that, when combined with Saverous and Longbows, or at least a highly skilled saverous, can have (perhaps) a more than counterable contribution.

Especially considering the possibility that other people will have sailing before Lanun could get Optics while Lanun is both A. Port happy 10x more than others, and B. Sailing is usually a low priority for other civs, and C. Port cities for non-OO followers is near suicide (at least in MP).

If you place that together, essentially Pirate Ports are a completely uncontested article and thus might need some regulations. As most other "advantages" are usually contested in some manner.

However, like I said, Nox Noctis and Chalid are much more overpowered than any Ports could dream of being.

I'd at least like the Nox to require running Esus ... or maybe tied to Sidar in some way.

 

[Jarrema]

I believe that Lanun are well balanced for pangea maps.
They just are so dependant on the map type, that it is impossible to balance them for every map type - on archipelago map they are clearly OP, but if you play for example 'highlands' map almost without water, they will be clearly at disadvantage

 

[cypher132]

I recently played a pangea map as the Amurites with 10 civs, one of them the Lanun under Falamar. It was about turn 200 and I had just destroyed the Doviello when I checked the Lanun. Most of their sea tiles were converted to ports or fishing/whaling boats. They had dominated the east coast and and gone from top to bottom with their cities. I tried to war against them with my vassals the Grigori and Bannor, but the Bannor got crushed, the Grigori got destroyed back to their only island city, and I had to give up because they were right at my last city with a huge stack of death.

I really should've paid attention to the Lanun.