tu_79
Deity
Grass flat lands with access to fresh water fits better.
The Netherlands
- Thread starter Funak
- Start date
Grass flat lands with access to fresh water fits better.
Gothic_Empire
AKA, Ramen Empire
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2008
- Messages
- 1,502
tu_79
Deity
Polders can be used on coast tiles, gaining land to the sea, or draining marshes. Marshes can be made on any drownable terrain, thus a flat wet terrain near fresh water, even alluvium. The idea of the polder is that the water can drown the terrain and with windmills the terrain is dried later, preventing it from rotting. It's a massive irrigation technique.
Gothic_Empire
AKA, Ramen Empire
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2008
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Ahh, ok. I thought it was about reclaiming land below sea level. Thanks!
tu_79
Deity
It is, too. But you cannot possibly grow anything just on salty water. A river or other source of fresh water is needed for the irrigation.
If you wanna do exactly as Netherlands, you could place a polder on a sea tile adjacent to a coastal tile, provided a river is near, but I cannot see technically how an embarked worker could make the improvement (a work boat, maybe?).
thelesserevil
Chieftain
Polders being built next to rivers and not exclusively on the coast makes sense, because we don't tend to build them on the coast. Coasts are for reinforcing and making sure the sea doesn't flood all of the lower level land further inland.
So, how come Polders aren't buildable on marsh anymore? Now I have to remove marshes now if I want to improve the land?
Have you read that in a change-log? Last time I played as the Netherlands I could still construct polders on marsh-tiles, might be a bug or something.
Any chance to include Enginseer's 'Polders on Marshes without water' minimod changes to the main mod? To keep my mod directory cleaner 
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/polder-on-marshes-without-water.604993/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/polder-on-marshes-without-water.604993/
Txurce
Deity
It's been a while since anyone's discussed the Dutch, which figures, since they're one of the major under-performers, and are probably only rarely used. I like playing with "average" civs, and have been playing with the Dutch lately. They are competitive in less than half my games; the mjority of the time I fall way behind in tech, and barely hang on culturally.
Given their obvious handicaps, it seems unfair that Sea Beggars don't automatically capture defeated ships. But a buff there wouldn't make enough of a difference. The Dutch uniques make sense, and I wouldn't want to reconceive them. But boosting their culture and gold yields for trading luxuries would help them not fall behind as much early on. I suggest we try this.
Given their obvious handicaps, it seems unfair that Sea Beggars don't automatically capture defeated ships. But a buff there wouldn't make enough of a difference. The Dutch uniques make sense, and I wouldn't want to reconceive them. But boosting their culture and gold yields for trading luxuries would help them not fall behind as much early on. I suggest we try this.
I find the Netherlands pretty good. As a tall culture focused civ they do well, the early gold is great for investing in secondary cities. The UA syngergizes with a good pantheon (festivals) and provides a solid amount of early yields. Of course this varies a lot each update since how much the AI values luxuries keeps changing. It also works much better on Pangea than continents, and you get really screwed by jungle
But approaching this game from a competitive perspective, I find any civ whose UA primarily provides culture to be really outclassed by Poland. Even if the other Dutch uniques are really good, Poland's UA provides more, its more consistent, and it takes less work.
But approaching this game from a competitive perspective, I find any civ whose UA primarily provides culture to be really outclassed by Poland. Even if the other Dutch uniques are really good, Poland's UA provides more, its more consistent, and it takes less work.
Txurce
Deity
I play them the way you described, using gold to rush shrines (although I usually just miss if I don't get a Prophet ruin). One exception: going Progress to expand more, and get more luxuries to trade. That make sense to you?
I'm fine with them not being as good as Poland, but when you say they're pretty good... wouldn't you rank them in the lower echelons? More importantly (I think) is where they rank for the AI. I never see the Dutch wind up in the top three in any of my games.
With progress you are going to reduce your UA bonus by settling so many cities. Just settle tradition cities far apart, barring a really weird start you shouldn't miss out on more than 1 resource, and you could possibly have imported it anyways. I play the Dutch very tall
The AI seems quite poorly tuned for the Dutch UA, both using it and playing against it. They happily sell me luxuries for 1 gold, which as Dutch with festivals means I get a lot more out of that than they do. Maybe that is the problem.
Yeah for some reason the dutch AI always seems to be the greediest one when going for trades. They pretty much always want to make a profit from every deal and they usually ask for twice the value other civs asks for, which might be fitting for them historically but it's not really fitting their UA.
As far as the dutch goes when you play them, they're kinda nice, the UA gives a pretty bizarre culture-boost in the early game and the polders are a totally decent unique improvement. The ship would probably be the most overpowered UU in the game if it wasn't a ship, but if you're playing on a map with a lot of coast you can just roll over AIs with poorly settled cities using it. Unlike normal units the ship isn't really slowed down by the AI in question possessing an army, you just steal it and either send it on suicideruns to his cities or you send them back to your cities for upgrades (or you just use them normally I guess).
The main dilemma that the dutch suffers is that all their unique kinda works against each other. The UA wants you to place as few cities as possible, as that makes the culture gained from it worth a lot more, the UI wants you to settle a whole bunch of cities with as much river-tiles as possible and the UU wants you to settle (and conquer) a few coastal cities, coastal cities usually having a lot fewer river-tiles than non-coastal cites (although that can vary)
LukaSlovenia29
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,500
Good analysis from Funak, agreed.
Txurce
Deity
This is definitely true, and should be addressed. If anything, they should be generous.
The Sea Beggar is why I like playing with them, but it doesn't often work out for me the way you describe. By the time the ships become available, you would need to be playing a militarily expansionist game to find enough poorly defended cities to take easily... and a lot of the ships they capture (in sea battles, anyway) are promptly killed by the AI. This is worth it tactically, but isn't quite as valuable as a free ship (which doesn't happen every time, regardless).
Gokudo01
Emperor
doesn't it start with 3 free promotions too ?
About the UA, funak is right, it seems paradoxical
About the UA, funak is right, it seems paradoxical
tu_79
Deity
That kind of uniques were made so to not force players into a fixed play style. Should you decide going wide or tall, there's always a bonus for you. Some other uniques from other civs are too one-dimensional and then people complain that the civ is only good at one thing.
Think it's 4 now, as it keeps prizeships which the normal corvette doesn't have anymore, but yeah it does, and it shows up earlier and has more strength, just by numbers it's by far the strongest UU in the game
But it's a melee ship so that kinda balances itself out.
I'm not saying it was bad or anything, I'm just saying that's the netherlands dilemma.
