The Netherlands

[SuperNoobCamper]

Yup, I was doing that for a long time until I decided it's a human exploit and that if the AI can't be taught to do it, I'd refrain from doing it as well. It makes the Netherlands arguably the best civ in the game, enabling you (along with the rest of the UA) to blitz through any of the three opening policy trees. That's why I recommended changing the UA to make it less powerful.

I would not call it an exploit per se but yes it's absurd and makes early game culture race and management a trivial task.
I don't thank the best course of action is nerfing Holland tho.

 

[stii]

I think the problem is that it is rather swingy. You get such a huge boost from some lux but not others.

 

[cerk]

Vanguard (+100% vs Cities, -50% from Cities) on Sea Beggars is very powerful on their UU, that also comes earlier (Astronomy, instead of Navigation). What ever issues you have with Naval Melee Units terrorizing Cities magnified. As Ironclads, they should be hitting Cities for 173%+ (125% from Vanguard, 33% from Ironclads onward, and at least +20% from Promotions) and at base 60 CS (155 CS at +173%). They will be hitting Cities for at least 200 damage, probably 1-shotting the Garrison, letting you take Cities in 2-3 hits. It doesn't really synergize with their other ability to capture Ships, Prize Ships. Although, it gives them another role however.

Vanguard is just awesome on a naval unit. It has not been nerfed like city assault and its a great promotion from the less preferred dreadnought line. It hits 30CS cities for 75 damage while taking only 5 damage in return. If the AI amasses enough land ranged units, a single Sea Beggar goes down only to yellow, guaranteeing you at least one hit on the city. Step a couple tiles back and heal with the supply promotion, repeat.

But the real power of Sea Beggar comes from the fact that its a melee ship and not a ranged ship. SOTLs into cruisers need iron, Sea Beggars have no such requirement. Its easy to amass a lot of these ironclads. Second, It does not suffer from the movement penalties of siege units. Third, ranged units suffer a -30% CS with logistics. Blitz on Sea Beggar does not. And Blitz is just too easy to get on these ships. I can park two of these in each enemy city, force the AI into concentrating ranged units at one city and just take 10 damage and get 10xp every turn.

It is strong as a UU should be, but it would be less oppressive if it unlocks at navigation. Other civs will still suffer if they do not have their own corvettes to fight by then and Sea Beggars still enjoy a great logistical advantage from supply promotion allowing them to invade other continents half an era before other civs can.

 

[KlHannibal2]

Vanguard is just awesome on a naval unit. It has not been nerfed like city assault and its a great promotion from the less preferred dreadnought line. It hits 30CS cities for 75 damage while taking only 5 damage in return. If the AI amasses enough land ranged units, a single Sea Beggar goes down only to yellow, guaranteeing you at least one hit on the city. Step a couple tiles back and heal with the supply promotion, repeat.

But the real power of Sea Beggar comes from the fact that its a melee ship and not a ranged ship. SOTLs into cruisers need iron, Sea Beggars have no such requirement. Its easy to amass a lot of these ironclads. Second, It does not suffer from the movement penalties of siege units. Third, ranged units suffer a -30% CS with logistics. Blitz on Sea Beggar does not. And Blitz is just too easy to get on these ships. I can park two of these in each enemy city, force the AI into concentrating ranged units at one city and just take 10 damage and get 10xp every turn.

It is strong as a UU should be, but it would be less oppressive if it unlocks at navigation. Other civs will still suffer if they do not have their own corvettes to fight by then and Sea Beggars still enjoy a great logistical advantage from supply promotion allowing them to invade other continents half an era before other civs can.

I find sea beggars ok as they are. The spanish armada also comes early. And while it is less powerful as it does not have as good promotions, Spain can mass them more easily due to their UA. And Spain is also good in religion, so apart from the unit I consider their bonuses stronger than Netherlands. Take all together, I find Ntherlands, Spain and Denmark the best warmongers on water-heavy maps. And on quite a similar level.

 

[ridjack]

Take all together, I find Ntherlands, Spain and Denmark the best warmongers on water-heavy maps.

I think people still REALLY underestimate Songhai's naval capabilities. Having Amphibious on everything for free is huge. Just float your army of City Assault units safely up to the city underneath your ships and wail away. Unlike on land, they're in no danger of being counterattacked, so you can whack away down to red and then cycle it out for a fresh one, and there really isn't much the AI can do about it if they can't get rid of your ships in a hurry.

 

[KlHannibal2]

I think people still REALLY underestimate Songhai's naval capabilities. Having Amphibious on everything for free is huge. Just float your army of City Assault units safely up to the city underneath your ships and wail away. Unlike on land, they're in no danger of being counterattacked, so you can whack away down to red and then cycle it out for a fresh one, and there really isn't much the AI can do about it if they can't get rid of your ships in a hurry.

Good point. That can destroy cities fast. I guess it depends on the map. With small islands, getting control of the sea is the most important thing IMO. Then you can take cities easily, especially with sea beggars or armadas. And Denmark also gets amphibious on the berserker, but also a unique caravell that helps clear the sea. Talking with more UC mod here.

 

[Stalker0]

People also underestimate Portugal in this respect. You rush buy a nau, send it to a a near cs, dump your two feitorias. You get xp to negate the buy penalty, and basically have enough gold to rush buy another nau. In other words, you can magic out a huge navy as Portugal.

I did that against the Netherlands in a past game. By the time they had sea beggars going I just ripped them to pieces with my large mass of ships before they could get established.

now make no mistake, the sea beggar is incredible…I just don’t think it’s unbeatable.

 

[DeAnno]

This is minor, but I think AI Netherlands should be willing to shell out top dollar for his first copy of a resource. His UA depends on it so much he should be desperate to make those trades happen, and when playing against him as an AI he never offers enough that I would sanely trade with him unless he was terribly losing already.

 

[Gidoza]

This is minor, but I think AI Netherlands should be willing to shell out top dollar for his first copy of a resource. His UA depends on it so much he should be desperate to make those trades happen, and when playing against him as an AI he never offers enough that I would sanely trade with him unless he was terribly losing already.

Yeah this is an interesting point - no calculating factor is placed into this, or moreover the Pantheon that does the same thing.

Also is it just me, or is it nigh impossible to meaningfully trade strategic resources now? It costs an arm and a leg, but you get diddly if you sell some.

 

[stii]

Yeah this is an interesting point - no calculating factor is placed into this, or moreover the Pantheon that does the same thing.

Also is it just me, or is it nigh impossible to meaningfully trade strategic resources now? It costs an arm and a leg, but you get diddly if you sell some.

The AI values them super low early on but a bit later they do go up to a reasonable amount where you can normally get 2-3gpt for each one.

 

[AndreyK]

The AI values them super low early on but a bit later they do go up to a reasonable amount where you can normally get 2-3gpt for each one.

It's never a reasonable amount, my income in Industrial 5500+ and I have 25 cities, only about 20-25 of strategics (part from CS), I use about 18-22, some of my units get killed and I get up to 6 unused. So there is no way to sell any of them for 1 gold (they offer 5 gold for 6 iron).

 

[Alpharius]

Yeah this is an interesting point - no calculating factor is placed into this, or moreover the Pantheon that does the same thing.

Also is it just me, or is it nigh impossible to meaningfully trade strategic resources now? It costs an arm and a leg, but you get diddly if you sell some.

Yeah I don't bother selling strategics nowadays. Unless my allied/friend civs are losing a war and need resources.

The prices do improve somewhat during later stages of the game but are negligible compared to the gold you get from cities/TRs/Lux.

 

[stii]

I mean every little helps and it seems far better to offer too little than too much. The AI already buys things it has no use for.

 

[Alpharius]

I mean every little helps and it seems far better to offer too little than too much. The AI already buys things it has no use for.

I guess so? It's certainly better than previous versions where the AI valued strategics very highly (back then I could make do with trade deals alone and use mostly internal trade routes )

But at certain points in the game it feels kinda awkward. Civs that are losing a war badly and lacking resources (-30 warscore or below) value strategics far too little, and trading important late game resources (oil, coal, aluminum) yields very low profit. Although I'm less certain about the latter because I've only reached late/end game tech around 4 times during the past two months, so I might need to play a bit more to see if the prices are consistent.

Overall trading strategic resources currently feels okay-ish but couldn't hurt with a little polish.