Thoughts on Chasqui Scout?

[Elek]

I was looking forward to playing agr/ind but ind is getting toned down so im not sure about that.

Anyway...Agr/Exp will definitely be the quickest start...good stuff...although the Chasqui Scout looks a little bland IMO. Plus they dont even start with one...If they started with a Chasqui Scout it would seem reasonable...or chasqui scout could lose its defense and just have 1 offense and cost a little less...either way would work.

The only use I see in the scout is making for quick early wars...but that totally goes against the idea of being agr/exp which is quick settler expansion...

I'm not a civ elite but this just doesnt look all that great to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong...but 20 shields just look daunting

 

[Tacit_Exit]

I can't see much good in them either; the only thing they have on Jag Warriors is the Mountain/Hill no-move-penalty, which would be rarely important (if you use your 2nd move to enter one of the latter terrains the move penalty is voided anyway), and they cost twice the shields.

If I was considering playing the Incans, It'd be based on traits alone. The Chasqui are too expensive as a 1 offense unit to be able to overwhelm an opponent early (ie: b4 too many spearmen are about) as can be done with the Jag.

 

[Emperor Xerxes]

I think that Inudtrious was toned down because Fascism has a 200% work rate. And already industious civ in Fascism would build everything instantly. I know, I have tried it in the editor.

As for the Chasqui, while it looks like it wont be as effective as the Jaguar I don't think Atari would just release a unit that is completely obsolete after doing loads of play tests. Then again they gave the English the Man-O-War and America arguably the most useless unit in the game-the F15.

Personally I think the Maya unit with its enslavement looks like it will be the best American culture group UU.

 

[Gogf]

A saw in a screenshot (I forget where) a Chasqui Scout inslaving a unit, I think that would add something valueable onto it. Or, for twenty shields, make it a 1/1/3, I'm sure they only looked at it from the stand-point of better than a scout, not from the jaguar warrior angle. So, anyway, I'll probably mod it, unless there is some secret about it that they won' tell us until Conquests comes out. Also, they are expansionate, so they get good goody huts, so it is good so that it doesn't get killed by barbarians (the Aztecs are not expansionate). Also, it ignores jungle, right? Well, in the Mesoamerican/Age of Discovery Conqeusts I'm sure there is a lot of jungle. Also, the Incas are primarily on hills (becuase you can't build cities on montians, unless they changed that).

 

[Bad Brett]

Here's the link:

http://www.civfanatics.com/cgi-bin/autoimage.cgi?/civ3images/c3c_s9072003/c3c_s01.jpg

This might only be in the scenario, but there is a chance that they forgot to write about the enslavement ability in the preview... anyone who know this for sure?

Firaxis said that "You won't be able to win a modern war just with an army of tanks" so the F-15 is probably a lot better now since you have to build a lot more planes. The Man-o-War has the ship enslavement ability and hopefully, they'll add some new techs between magnetism and steam power (or make the steam power always take a long time to research)... right now, playing on higher difficulty levels, building frigates is just a waste of shields, because you're opponents will travel around the world in ironclads when your first one is completed.

 

[wotan321]

I'm sorry to disagree, but I think this civ will be impressive. If you use a strategy of pop rushing units and improvements early in despotism, the agr trait will really help. You will be able to scout, aggress, and grow quickly, which is vital to winning early. The two traits and the UU give this civ a very fast start and the ability to really use despotism to overwhelm your neighbors very quickly.

 

[Bad Brett]

I'd rather take 2 jaguar warriors instead of 1 scout...

...or 1 archer instead of 1 scout
...or 2 swordmen instead of 3 scouts.

 

[Elek]

Originally posted by wotan321
I'm sorry to disagree, but I think this civ will be impressive. If you use a strategy of pop rushing units and improvements early in despotism, the agr trait will really help. You will be able to scout, aggress, and grow quickly, which is vital to winning early. The two traits and the UU give this civ a very fast start and the ability to really use despotism to overwhelm your neighbors very quickly.

I'm not questioning the civ...the civ looks great its the unit which im questioning...

 

[USC]

If the UU is sub-par, it wouldn't be the first time a strong pair of traits was balanced with a fairly weak UU. Think of the Egyptians and the War Chariot, pooh-poohed by many players. Of course, the Chariot is half-decent if you know how to use it right (beeline to Monarchy and make maximum use of the fact that you're getting most of your "chariot upgrade" without the upgrade, without needing to hold back on learning horseback riding, and before actually getting horseback riding). Just like the advantages of the war chariot are subtle and require some skill to apply, I suppose it'll be the same with the Chasqui. Above all Tacit_Exit's statement "if you use your 2nd move to enter one of the latter terrains the move penalty is voided anyway" kind of misses the point -- the real extra vision comes from mountains (since there are all kinds of things that can block hill vision), and long strings of mountains tend to be buried inside other non-open terrain. Also, the "fastest" movement is diagonal relative to the grid (i.e. N/W/S/E) in a straight line, and hopping into/out of hills/mountains generally means sacrificing one or the other of these movement patterns.

Also, in MP, you won't have to worry so much about your scout getting whacked by other humans. The Aztecs don't either, of course, but they don't have the other advantages of the Chasqui.

My bet is that the Incans will gain the nickname "Kings of Contact."

 

[kryszcztov]

My opinion on the chasqui scout, still I've already argued about it on the chat...

My thought is that this UU is bad.

The Incans are expansionnist, and so have to make the best use of their trait, otherwise they'll end up with one useless trait. Being expansionnist means to be able to build scouts that will quickly run through open land to search for other tribes and huts, and to safely pop up huts. The key is to quickly build some scouts without much delay and send them everywhere. Now we have the chasqui scout ; this unit is a warrior and a scout altogether, making it a superb unit, available from scratch ! Now this fusion costs 20 shields. STOP. Where is the blitz exploration ? What I wanted was to build scouts quickly so as to secure huts and meet the other tribes first. The Incans will be able to build super-units that can pillage easily, defend quite well, retreat... but they'll be late on the exploration front, their first mission... making the expansionnist trait of less value.

But it doesn't stop there. With more time required to build those super-scouts, not only do you let other scouts scout faster, but you also delay your expansion ! Settlers will come later, etc... And you don't want to bring your old super-scouts back home for garrison duty, right ? So you'll have to build warriors or such anyway.

Fortunately, the Incans are agricultural, making it less bad than at first glance. Still, the expansionnist traist is partially wasted. Now, chasqui scouts will be able to trigger a golden age ! This will allow the Incans to build chasqui scouts faster, almost at double speed ! Well, if you're quick enough to find a foe to kill... And if you are, that will mean an ultra-early golden age. And if you really want to build chasqui scouts quickly, you'd better have an ultra-early golden age, because you don't want to build chasqui scouts for ever. So the Incans are forced to get this kind of golden age if they want to profit a lot from their characteristics, making them an ultra-early civilization... or a crippled one. And ultra-early civs aren't the best ones, or I could say that it's better to have the choice. See the Greeks : they can have a golden age very early, but can also delay it till the Middle Ages or later without crippling their expansion.

What that really makes me think is to be able to build both the UU and the unit it replaces. I'd like to be able to build standard scouts as Inca if I want. I don't care if they are killed (I mostly think of solo games here). When they are killed, most of their job is done. And 2 scouts is always better than 1 super-scout. Of course the Greeks won't build any spearmen, because hoplites are better in any point. But what about gallic swordsmen (50 shields !!!), sipahi (80 shields, less impact) and so on...? The worst thing is that the chasqui scout is directly associated with one of the Incan traits, so that you're almost forced to build it... or you waste a trait...

OK, 20 shields may not sound a lot. You'll delay your expansion by a few turns, it's not the end of the world. Well, play Sid level and you'll see. It's a matter of turns. Agr/Exp sounds appealing, but sorry, the chasqui scout does not... Maybe it is intended : make a not-so-good unit that look good to some people ?

I'll be very glad if some people counter my point of view. Don't hesitate. And don't forget this is only MY point of view, based on what is known right now. Other things will surely have changed, they said so.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by kryszcztov
My opinion on the chasqui scout, still I've already argued about it on the chat...

My thought is that this UU is bad.

The Incans are expansionnist, and so have to make the best use of their trait, otherwise they'll end up with one useless trait. Being expansionnist means to be able to build scouts that will quickly run through open land to search for other tribes and huts, and to safely pop up huts. The key is to quickly build some scouts without much delay and send them everywhere. Now we have the chasqui scout ; this unit is a warrior and a scout altogether, making it a superb unit, available from scratch ! Now this fusion costs 20 shields. STOP. Where is the blitz exploration ? What I wanted was to build scouts quickly so as to secure huts and meet the other tribes first. The Incans will be able to build super-units that can pillage easily, defend quite well, retreat... but they'll be late on the exploration front, their first mission... making the expansionnist trait of less value.

If you only knew. If we were allowed to show the debates over this UU during the beta test (there've been debates about everything - that's one of the fun parts of a beta - fine tuning the game), then we would.

The problem with a blitz unit early on is that, on lower levels, most AI (and player) civs haven't built their first unit yet. If you played on an 80% map on say, chieftain, then you'd probably win very, very quickly. The AI would start to have a chance on regent. The Jaguar Warriors were powerful enough as it is.

 

[Elek]

2 Questions-

1) Chieftess: Could the debates be posted AFTER the game is released? Pleeeeeease!

2) Could the game be modded without much effort to allow Incans to build normal scouts?

 

[Chieftess]

Eklek -

1 - Even if we could, the debates are behind a firewall. Never to be seen again. They are in the archives of the Internet.

2. Sure, as with any civ. In the editor, you can also go to the scout hit, scroll down to the Incas, and hold CTRL (so the list doesn't reset) and click "Inca".

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Originally posted by Chieftess
Eklek -

1 - Even if we could, the debates are behind a firewall. Never to be seen again. They are in the archives of the Internet.

2. Sure, as with any civ. In the editor, you can also go to the scout hit, scroll down to the Incas, and hold CTRL (so the list doesn't reset) and click "Inca".

I am pretty sure some resourceful people saved alot of the threads on the beta (okay, I know!).

I wonder if they'd be allowed to share them?

 

[Civrules]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
I wonder if they'd be allowed to share them?

Nope. As far as I know, no one can share anything that has been going on in the beta.

 

[Gogf]

Okay, does anybody think this will be too powerful:

Chasqui Scout
1/1/2
Costs 20 shields
Enslave (1/3) to make Chasqui Scout

How's that sound?

Also, your cities are agricultural, therefore, you gain population quickly, and therefore production will rise (in the early game, you primarily have cities close to your capital, which have low corruption), so you can build the unit quickly. Not so bad... eh?

 

[warpstorm]

Way too powerful. You don't realize just how powerful enslave is.

 

[Louis XXIV]

What about the ability to pillage without loosing a movement point? (doesn't seem to be too useful, but who knows?)

I'm just trying to think of anything that would improve the unit so it becomes much better.

 

[Gogf]

I do realise how powerful enslave is, it's just that how often does a 1/1 win a fight? If you are attacking a defending unit (nonbarbarian) they have the advantage, no matter what. Of course, that would be overly strong against barbarians. Of course, you could have enslave to produce a worker. Does that make it a better unit than no enslave, or still too powerful, in your opinion?

 

[Tacit_Exit]

How about 0/0/1, 10 shields, All-Terrain-as-Roads.

At least it bolsters the Expansionist aspect, instead of being a Jack of all Trades, Master of None.

edit: I meant 0/0/1