I agree with you that polders appear fine from a balance perspective. In this I disagree with @Enrico Swagolo, who first raised the issue of Polders. I also agree with @Stalker0 in that, taken as a complete package, the Netherlands are an interesting civ. I do not agree with you or Stalker that this is therefore the end of the discussion. Yes, sapping 1-2 movement from enemy units would be fluff, but it would be historic fluff. There were several instances of the Dutch intentionally flooding the lowlands for defensive purposes, and even examples of occupying forces flooding the polders to cover their retreat. I'm not precisely sure what the adjacency on villages/towns is meant to be a callback to, but the defensive use of polders seems the most salient aspect of their historic value. If the adjacency bonus were dropped in favor of it I think it would be an improvement. What would be required is adding an exception to MovesChange so that units on roads or that ignore movement penalties aren't affected.
I don't like this, because it's a hard mechanic to communicate to the player, especially newer players. It would also hurt the AI quite a bit. G
Because now we are trying to complete the mod, or at least a polished version of it. In order to do that, you have to start saying things are done. If you never do that...you never get done. Your right we have been debating these leaders for years...and at some point we have to stop and say “the civ looks good, let’s not touch it”. I don’t mind debating a civ, But by your own admission, the civ is balanced and interesting to play. Thst means we won! We have succeeded in the goal for this civ, so let’s move on to one that isn’t so balanced and interesting.
Having played against the Dutch once in 4UC (about 5 months ago), I'm against the movement-penalty effect: it was indeed a bad surprise when I discovered this effect, it made war a logistical nightmare (logistics constraints can be fun - this wasn't). It was quite a bit like the Vanilla Great Wall, which was changed for good reasons. Lastly (but that could probably be solved), IIRC the effect persisted even when the improvement was pillaged - which is unlike other improvements (Chateau, Citadels, ...) and was another bad surprise. But in the end, the AI not handling it well is the strongest argument.
We've been looking for more feedback on the modmod; it's too bad that you felt so strongly about an aspect of the 4UC, but didn't say anything. I appreciate the feedback on its implementation. However, the vanilla great wall effect still exists with Russia's Ostrog. Is there something that makes it bearable there, yet unbearable here? Teaching the AI may be one thing, but I can't see how communicating this would be difficult to players. Consuming 1 extra movement is a widespread mechanic that is very familiar to players. Rough terrain, and the aforementioned Ostrog, for instance. Regardless, even if this idea gets no uptake, which seems doubtful now, I think the MovesChange column could use some attention. It seems fair that MovesChange, if positive, should only affect the owner of the improvement, and that a negative value for MovesChange should only affect a player which does NOT own the tile. In the future, if someone uses CBP to implement a movement-draining improvement (dragon's teeth, for instance), It would suck if it also hurt your own unit's mobility. Likewise, it would suck if an invader could co-opt your unique improvement (ie. a pony-express/yam) while invading you. Maybe I'll start a Github ticket for that QoL change to the table?
I feel the dutch are a little lackluster, polders come online very late and can be a pain to place. If anything were changed I would say give the dutch a coastal starting bias and allow polders to be built next to coast. If this too much, take some power away from the sea beggar. My biggest problem with the dutch is that I feel like I need just the right starting location to have fun playing them. If I dont start on coast, my ability to pump out sea beggars is hindered. If I dont have a decent river system or lake, I probably wont be able to use many polders. Other civs that are terrain dependent like Inca, Iroquise, and Brazil arent so bad because Im usually looking for only one terrain feature; mountains, forests, or rain forests. I understand it can be very hard to balance them, the UA can provide an almost insane amount of culture especially in medieval and once you start securing city state alliances.
I like the Dutch, but their terrain dependence is sometimes a pain. A reason why I like to play PerfectWorld3, cause there are typically more rivers than in other maps. It surprises me, I noticed it not before, but polders were typically on the coast and not rivers. Allow them on coast too would be nice, but I think Gazebo will dislike the idea cause this ability is already on the Polynesian improvement. Something I would consider is to allow polders adjactend to cities after a specific tech is researched. This would allow to guarantee atleast some improvements, if you spawn on riverless plains. Maybe one era after the polders are unlocked? To balance it, you could remove the town/village bonus, even I like to optimize such bonuses.
I think we should puff the Bolder. It's by far the worst UI, combining all the worst possible traits - bad starting yields, comes late, has few technology buffs, it's unreliable (requires resourceless rivers/fresh water near lakes). The cities don't even want to work it before one or preferably both tech upgrades, and they come in early/late renaissance respectively. Village can be arguably stronger than the Polder, too. Sure, you can - and should - place a Village between Polders to make it really good, but that's also extremely unreliable and RNG dependent if you want more than 1 bonus GPT on a village. What sucks is also that the UI comes so late and just a few techs later it has all the two tech upgrades and that's it, it permanently stops improving, with no tech providing anything. With the Encampment getting buffs, I think this also needs a friendly touch.
The Inca have the best UI, hands down, and the Portuguese have the most interesting. The rest of the UI's in the game should be held to those standards. Ekis, Polders, and Encampents all feel pointless to me.
How are Villages better than Polders? They have the same amount of Gold to begin with and a base hammer, Villages get +1-2 Gold more if they're on a Road/Trade Route but the +3 Food a Polder has is always valuable and after Chemistry/Economics they beat Villages hands down. You're supposed to put Village on the non-fresh water tiles next to them. Having a Farm+Village basically baked in one is useful for Tradition especially.
I wouldn't talk all that badly of the Eki as I've seen Atilla do crazy spam of this and it has the benefit of being an early Culture source that can be plentiful, but if the map decides to do the thing with too much things that aren't bare featureless okay lands, it's just a poor man's encampment. I agree they're better after both boosts, but they're much inferior before Chemistry and still worse after Chemistry. Eco + Chem makes them slightly better only, but that changes little. This late medieval UI is not even better than a common late classical regular improvement before it reaches late renaissance, and that sucks. What adds to the suckage is that even after late renaissance, it's not a greatly better option than the Village everyone can get, and that's two eras later while the amount of tiles one can work is limited. Railroads will come soon to add IIRC another +1 (I think?) to the villages, too.
I'd give it a stat bump (either chemistry or base), and another tech in industrial or modern era to slightly boost it.
If you were looking to add a wow-factor to the polder, you could make them add 1 movement cost to the tile. That would require new code, but lots of UIs have special unique thingies about them. Polders are pretty vanilla
That's how it works in 4UC and the usage is pretty marginal. From experience it's just not nearly enough to make it even a decent UI. It also requires two Polder icons as a separate improvement, and I doubt Gazebo would want Netherlands workers to have two polder icons, one for non-fresh marsh, one for fresh.
