Treasure Fleets post 1.2.2 - Any easier?

[Boris Gudenuf]

To comment on the last batch of posts all at once . . .

AI not competing for many Legacies (ecept Antiquity Wonders, which are always all built long before the end of the Age!) is very typical of Civ VII games, but never more obvious than the Treasure resources in Exploration. In my last game, the first 4 AI settlements on the Distant Lands islands (I was playing a Pangaea Huge map) were none of them near any Treasure Resources, even though there were at least 3 island sites with such resources available.

My experience with both 1.2.2 and 1.2.3 patches/upgrades is that it takes some serious work and planning to get enough Distant Lands/Treasure Resources to complete the Legacy Path. As posted, resources are either hidden behind Distant Lands Civs, or so scattered that it takes 6 Settlements to gather 8 Resources, or so far away that it takes 10 turns or more to carry them back to your nearest settlement with a Wharf. In my last half a dozen games I have either just missed completing the Economic Exploration Legacy by 1 - 3 points (with 4 or more Fleets still en route) or just finished it with less than 5 turns left in the Age.

This is not bad game design. It is actually refreshing to know that I have to work to complete the Path, regardless of the deficiencies of the AI. But it does add an element of 'Cliff Hanger" to completing the Path!

Right now, in fact, my biggest complaint with the Exploration Age legacies is that everything is too firmly defined by actions in the Distant Lands. Unless you are playing Mongolia or Songhai, everything except the Science Path, which is a snooze, requires you to race for the horizon and settle and fight there. Fighting to take settlements in the Homeland, except Mongolia, is a waste of time and energy. This is particularly irritating when, by my count, 8 of the 13 Exploration Age Civs in the game did virtually no Exploration to Distant Lands historically, but stayed home and beat up their immediate neighbors instead.

While I know this is in line with the described intent of the Age (and the title of the Age), it is so single-minded as to make every Exploration Age play nearly the same way: run for the Distant Lands resource spots, settle or capture enough sites in the Distant Lands to get the resources and finish the Military Path, while back home you simply send out Missionaries with the proper religious effects to gather Relics and adjacentize enough settlement quarters to get your Science spots. Same Every Game, ho-hum . . .

 

[vorlon_mi]

My first 2-3 games (before most patches) I found treasure resources on the island chains for standard, continents+ maps. My last 2-3 games, not so much.
In my first game after convoys could cross land, I forgot that feature and left them floating, just a hex or two away from my town.

The islands have either normal resources or no resources. I would echo/lament the slow speed of treasure fleets/convoys in the current game. Spawning happens every 8 turns, but I spend 6 turns guiding each one back to friendly waters. I would welcome more "spice islands", so to speak, so that the legacy path is more realizable. I'm starting to think that I'm going to need to plan for a transoceanic invasion to take a coastal town from a Distant Lands AI that has access to Treasure Resources. I'm grateful that my convoys have not been threatened (so far) by AI ships while at war.

 

[reddishrecue]

The treasure fleets aren't that easy. When I use the game and get to this era, I hardly use treasure fleets probably because I use Pangea plus.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The treasure fleets aren't that easy. When I use the game and get to this era, I hardly use treasure fleets probably because I use Pangea plus.

I've been playing almost entirely on Pangea Plus maps, and the game I finished last weekend was typical:
On the islands that constitute the 'Distant Lands" there were about 14 Treasure resources, with one site that could access 3 of them and 3 sites that could access 2 (if you stretched), The rest were one resource only. That means there were barely enough resources for 3 Civs to finish the Legacy path if they really moved fast to drop settlements down and get the resources accessed, piers and wharfs built, and even then (on a Huge map) the travel times made it a close run thing.

This has been the pattern I've seen with Pangaea maps: the resources are all easily accessible, but so scattered you need a minimum of 3 - 5 settlements to access enough of them. The only thing that saves you is the fact that the AI (still!) does not seem to prioritize settling near Treasure Resources: in that last game the first 3 AI settlements on the Distant Lands islands were NONE of them near a Treasure resource, leaving the sites with access to 2 - 3 resources free for me to grab.

On the last couple of non-Pangaea maps I played, there were far more Treasure resources overall, but virtually none of them on the Distant Lands continent were accessible - all hidden behind a wall of AI Civ borders or on the far side of the continent from where I could reach - as far away on the game map as it was possible to get. Since this had been the pattern in all but one games since I started playing, I could not see the point in playing such maps again.

The entire Economic Legacy path in Exploration remains entirely too dependent on map generation, and if the map generates against you you do not find out until you are several turns into the Age and discover a resource wasteland for which there is no remedy, since it's too late by then to select Mongolia or Songhai for the Age.

 

[Leucarum]

As a general rule the more of a minigame the legacy path, the less fun it is. Treasure fleets, missionaries, archaeology, factories... They're probably the most dull of the lot, and also the most mini-gamey. Add the map dependancy of Treasure fleets... And it's not the greatest gameplay loop.

 

[reddishrecue]

I've been playing almost entirely on Pangea Plus maps, and the game I finished last weekend was typical:
On the islands that constitute the 'Distant Lands" there were about 14 Treasure resources, with one site that could access 3 of them and 3 sites that could access 2 (if you stretched), The rest were one resource only. That means there were barely enough resources for 3 Civs to finish the Legacy path if they really moved fast to drop settlements down and get the resources accessed, piers and wharfs built, and even then (on a Huge map) the travel times made it a close tun thing.

This has been the pattern I've seen with Pangaea maps: the resources are all easily accessible, but so scattered you need a minimum of 3 - 5 settlements to access enough of them. The only thing that saves you is the fact that the AI (still!) does not seem to prioritize settling near Treasure Resources: in that last game the first 3 AI settlements on the Distant Lands islands were NONE of them near a Treasure resource, leaving the sites with access to 2 - 3 resources free for me to grab.

On the last couple of non-Pangaea maps I played, there were far more Treasure resources overall, but virtually none of them on the Distant Lands continent were accessible - all hidden behind a wall of AI Civ borders or on the far side of the continent from where I could reach - as far away on the game map as it was possible to get. Since this had been the pattern in all but one games since I started playing, I could not see the point in playing such maps again.

The entire Economic Legacy path in Exploration remains entirely too dependent on map generation, and if the map generates against you you do not find out until you are several turns into the Age and discover a resource wasteland for which there is no remedy, since it's too late by then to select Mongolia or Songhai for the Age.

I appreciate the reply, you have a lot of neat stuff here that I totally agree with and I feel like the other maps are better suited for a treasure fleet victory. I guess its because I focus on the ancient era so much that establishing trade routes becomes a easy thing to do and go for on Pangea maps.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've been playing almost entirely on Pangea Plus maps, and the game I finished last weekend was typical:
On the islands that constitute the 'Distant Lands" there were about 14 Treasure resources, with one site that could access 3 of them and 3 sites that could access 2 (if you stretched), The rest were one resource only. That means there were barely enough resources for 3 Civs to finish the Legacy path if they really moved fast to drop settlements down and get the resources accessed, piers and wharfs built, and even then (on a Huge map) the travel times made it a close run thing.

This has been the pattern I've seen with Pangaea maps: the resources are all easily accessible, but so scattered you need a minimum of 3 - 5 settlements to access enough of them. The only thing that saves you is the fact that the AI (still!) does not seem to prioritize settling near Treasure Resources: in that last game the first 3 AI settlements on the Distant Lands islands were NONE of them near a Treasure resource, leaving the sites with access to 2 - 3 resources free for me to grab.

On the last couple of non-Pangaea maps I played, there were far more Treasure resources overall, but virtually none of them on the Distant Lands continent were accessible - all hidden behind a wall of AI Civ borders or on the far side of the continent from where I could reach - as far away on the game map as it was possible to get. Since this had been the pattern in all but one games since I started playing, I could not see the point in playing such maps again.

The entire Economic Legacy path in Exploration remains entirely too dependent on map generation, and if the map generates against you you do not find out until you are several turns into the Age and discover a resource wasteland for which there is no remedy, since it's too late by then to select Mongolia or Songhai for the Age.

In my first game, I formed a first impression that has colored every game I played since. In that game, I found a treasure resource on an island only 6 or 7 hexes from my homeland. Others were found on the Distant Land continent and some islands, but I've never forgotten the tremendous good fortune to find one so close.

I played a Pangea Plus map when it was first released. My empire was on the western half of the large land mass. I kept searching -- in vain -- for the eastern shore. One of my cogs actually traversed the northern polar ice cap before finally reaching the eastern ocean; lots of homeland AI settlements between my empire and the sea. When I finally could safely traverse deep ocean, I did find some DL islands further to my west, but achieving the TF legacy path was impossible.

Because of my sentimental attachment to Treasure Fleets, from those first games pre-patch, I keep playing Continents+ or Terra Incognita maps. I try to get a settlement on both the east and west coasts, in hopes of finding those cherished islands again. I've not yet dialed up a Pangea+ map again, for that reason. I may do that in my next game, just to see what effect Treasure convoys has on my preferences.

 

[Uberfrog]

As a general rule the more of a minigame the legacy path, the less fun it is. Treasure fleets, missionaries, archaeology, factories... They're probably the most dull of the lot, and also the most mini-gamey. Add the map dependancy of Treasure fleets... And it's not the greatest gameplay loop.

I don’t really get the “mini game” criticism. A minigame to me would imply that the mechanics are somehow completely separate from the rest of the game, which I don’t really think applies.

The race for treasure resources is essentially a race to settle desirable land, which has always been pretty core to the Civ experience. Protecting the treasure fleets could be considered a little gamey, I suppose, if it weren’t entirely trivial.

The concept of resource slots is new to Civ 7 but ingrained through all three ages. Slotting factory resources is very similar to slotting resources for any other purpose, and requiring you to build a certain number of factories/railway stations is entirely consistent with building any other sort of building to pursue a different victory.

And if missionaries and archaeologists are a mini game, then they have been mini games for the past three instalments and appear to now be series staples.