Treasure Fleets From Homeland Cities?

[uppi]

Yeah, I guess my point generally is that I don't really understand the model for Chola. You get bonuses for trade, but they are rather weak compared to their naval abilities. One of their unique buildings helps you build naval units, which further encourages you to Command and Conquer. If I could recategorize them, I would label them Militaristic/Economic. This feels more honest to me than Economic/Diplomatic, which to me, implies a more peaceful approach.

Diplomatic Civs often grant you extra happiness. And what do you do with that extra happiness? There are only so many celebrations you can get, so the best sink for it is going over your settlement limit. The warmongering aspect of Diplomatic should not be underestimated.

I'll repeat, though, that the Economic/Resource Legacy path in Exploration is far too entirely dependent on map generation for any success. You either find 0 resources available without major effort (war or settling Far Away with devious routes for the Treasure Fleets) or too few Resources reachable in time to complete the path (and no way at all to speed up the fleets in map speed or generation time) or you find just enough resources at your doorstep and complete the entire path before the Age is 2/3 over.

Much of the map-dependency goes away, though, if you embrace your inner conquistador and be ready to take those resources by force. You often do not even have to do protracted battles against big cities, there usually will be lightly defended towns with plenty of resources.

I think the economic legacy in Exploration is not intended to be entirely peaceful. The distant lands are not supposed to be free real estate.

... Or that might be just me trying to justify my warmongering

 

[queenpea]

Diplomatic Civs often grant you extra happiness. And what do you do with that extra happiness? There are only so many celebrations you can get, so the best sink for it is going over your settlement limit. The warmongering aspect of Diplomatic should not be underestimated.

Yeah, for me this is counter intuitive and probably confusing for players. If they are good at expanding just make them expansionist. They are great at capturing coastal cities (treasure fleet cities), so just say that part out loud.

 

[UWHabs]

Haven't seen more than 1 - 2 stray Treasure resources spawn much north of south of a center 'equator' line except on the main continent of the Distant Lands, and they were buried behind Distant Lands AI Civs' territory and so not available without a major war and so not really worth it.

In general, though, the post-Patch maps seem to be much lighter on Treasure Resources in general than before. Before I almost always could find 3 - 7 Resource sites on the islands between Home and Distant lands, since then I'm lucky to find more than 1. Except in my last game, where one fat island had sites for 5 cities and 6 Treasure Resource sites, and I managed to get all 6 sites under my cities before the AI got to them.

I'll repeat, though, that the Economic/Resource Legacy path in Exploration is far too entirely dependent on map generation for any success. You either find 0 resources available without major effort (war or settling Far Away with devious routes for the Treasure Fleets) or too few Resources reachable in time to complete the path (and no way at all to speed up the fleets in map speed or generation time) or you find just enough resources at your doorstep and complete the entire path before the Age is 2/3 over.

Agreed, it's highly map dependent. Although also I find since the economic path is the one that you are basically gate-kept from most in terms of limiting how fast you can get through it. I find more often than not, I might have a bunch of settlements generating treasure fleets, but by the time I get shipbuilding, wait the 8 turns between each ship generating, I'm basically running right into the end of the era already. My last game, I just barely had enough time to generate my last fleet, and get it back to my homeland, only for Augustus to park a ship on the one tile that I had time to unload it in, and ended up finishing the era 2 points short.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Agreed, it's highly map dependent. Although also I find since the economic path is the one that you are basically gate-kept from most in terms of limiting how fast you can get through it. I find more often than not, I might have a bunch of settlements generating treasure fleets, but by the time I get shipbuilding, wait the 8 turns between each ship generating, I'm basically running right into the end of the era already. My last game, I just barely had enough time to generate my last fleet, and get it back to my homeland, only for Augustus to park a ship on the one tile that I had time to unload it in, and ended up finishing the era 2 points short.

"2 points short" could be the unofficial motto of Civ VII: already I've been caught short by 1 turn or 1 point or more when the "X Age is Ending" message comes up: Treasure Fleets, Relics, last Urban Tile at 39 for Science, etc.

On the other hand, the closest any AI has come to swiping a Victory from me at the end of Modern Age was when Baroque Fred was within long shouting distance (5 exhibits short) of a Culture Victory when I finished the World Bank. No other AI civ or leader has ever come close, so that I am becoming much less concerned with developments at the end of Antiquity or Exploration because they don't appear to matter that much when it comes to dominating the Modern Age and achieving one of the game's Victory Conditions.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Diplomatic Civs often grant you extra happiness. And what do you do with that extra happiness? There are only so many celebrations you can get, so the best sink for it is going over your settlement limit. The warmongering aspect of Diplomatic should not be underestimated.



Much of the map-dependency goes away, though, if you embrace your inner conquistador and be ready to take those resources by force. You often do not even have to do protracted battles against big cities, there usually will be lightly defended towns with plenty of resources.

I think the economic legacy in Exploration is not intended to be entirely peaceful. The distant lands are not supposed to be free real estate.

... Or that might be just me trying to justify my warmongering

The problem with a conquest/domination strategy for Exploration Treasure Resources is Time. It generally takes 20 - 30 turns to discover the Treasure Resources and whether settlements are already parked on them. Then you have to get to them physically with a fleet/amphibious force and take them. Then you get to start your Treasure Fleets. I find that unless I have set the game to Long Ages or the first settlement captured has 3 - 4 or more resources, I can very easily run out of time in the Age before getting the Treasure Total.

It is, however, as you posted, another way of pursuing the "Economic" Legacy path in Exploration. Just one that requires at least as much attention to the time factor as simply finding and settling the resources yourself.

As far as I remember, Ashoka is the only Leader who gets 'extra' benefits from excess Happiness, so playing anybody else, the extra Happiness can go to other forms of Excess, like Settlement limits. This is still only an amelioration, not a cure, for happiness troubles. Combine being over the settlement limit with fighting a long war (like, against 3 - 4 AI civs at once) and you can run through the excess pretty quickly - which, I suspect, is exactly how the limits/happiness resitrictions are supposed to work

 

[aelf]

I think the economic legacy in Exploration is not intended to be entirely peaceful. The distant lands are not supposed to be free real estate.

The problem is not every civ is geared towards that on Deity, even those that the challenges indicate are suited for the economic legacy path.

 

[uppi]

The problem with a conquest/domination strategy for Exploration Treasure Resources is Time. It generally takes 20 - 30 turns to discover the Treasure Resources and whether settlements are already parked on them. Then you have to get to them physically with a fleet/amphibious force and take them. Then you get to start your Treasure Fleets. I find that unless I have set the game to Long Ages or the first settlement captured has 3 - 4 or more resources, I can very easily run out of time in the Age before getting the Treasure Total.

It is, however, as you posted, another way of pursuing the "Economic" Legacy path in Exploration. Just one that requires at least as much attention to the time factor as simply finding and settling the resources yourself.

20-30 turns is a bit long for finding treasure resources. Obviously, it depends on the map (on Continents it could be as early as turn 5), but you kind of know where they are supposed to be. And on Deity, the AI is very likely to have settlements parked on treasure resources anyway, so I send my packed army commanders as soon as cartography hits (which I prioritize). I also often explore a bit with those armies, so that once I know what to hit, they are already there. I bring a settler or two as well, to settle any unclaimed resources or to just have a base of operations. The first towns should then fall around the time shipbuilding hits, and then treasure fleets can spawn (unless the AI built the fishing quay in a lake again...).

Conquering treasure resources is not faster than settling them, but it is more consistent. Of course, there still is a map dependency, but in my games the difference is usually whether I get 35 or 70 treasure fleet points (on normal age length)

 

[stealth_nsk]

Actually with Imago Mundi I sometimes find treasure resources in antiquity.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Actually with Imago Mundi I sometimes find treasure resources in antiquity.

- And sometimes that lone Treasure resource you spotted with Imago Mundi at the edge of vision from the Homeland turns out to be the ONLY Treasure Resource on that entire chain of islands. Which you discover after you spent many turns in Antiquity making sure you had a coastal settlement right next to it and then building all your Scouts and Cogs in to access. And then finding that the coast of the Distant Lands continent beyond those islands is where all three AI Civs spawned in Antiquity so the entire coast is solid with settlements already.

There are reasons why I've finished about 5 times more Antiquity Ages than I have Exploration Ages . . .

 

[stealth_nsk]

- And sometimes that lone Treasure resource you spotted with Imago Mundi at the edge of vision from the Homeland turns out to be the ONLY Treasure Resource on that entire chain of islands. Which you discover after you spent many turns in Antiquity making sure you had a coastal settlement right next to it and then building all your Scouts and Cogs in to access. And then finding that the coast of the Distant Lands continent beyond those islands is where all three AI Civs spawned in Antiquity so the entire coast is solid with settlements already.

There are reasons why I've finished about 5 times more Antiquity Ages than I have Exploration Ages . . .

Yep, this sometimes happens with Continents+ since last patch, which reduced landmass. I hope changes in resource allocation in the next patch will make Continents+ great again

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You don't have to move the Songhai treasure fleet to cash it in.

I've been very confused about treasure fleets since my first game as I was convinced you just cashed in your treasure fleets when they appeared but the behaviour changed in every subsequent game. Just realised it's because I went Egypt -> Songhai lol.