[NFP] Vietnam Discussion Thread

Vietnam is my new favorite. In fact, I think I've finally found my "main."

For a fun game, prioritize things like culture, gold, and faith, whilst completely ignoring science (no campuses). The mismatch in science and culture can be hilarious. Elephant armies anyone? Best of all, Vietnam... won't die. I highly recommend anyone who wants to try deity but is scared start with Vietnam!

Here are my personal ratings:
Drive Out the Aggressors - A Tier - It's too much fun, even if it may not help much with any particular victory. See above about not dying. Goes well with Matterhorn. My favorite LUA.
Nine Dragon River Delta - D Tier - Arguably more of a malus than a bonus, since you can't harvest as much and district placement is more limited; however, two perks are that districts are more defensible and adjacency bonuses due to woods and rainforest remain intact. I don't mind at all considering the rest of the kit.
Voi Chien - S Tier - Move after shooting, which pairs well with extra movement from terrain features - easy to love.
Thanh - S Tier - The fact that it has no population requirement and less production cost means you can easily get one in every city; extra culture is icing on the cake.

Overall - S Tier. Fantastic design, abilities work well together

Biggest Pro: You won't die.
Biggest Con: Placing districts can be frustrating. You may miss out on the perfect +6 campus because there are no woods. The Thanh further complicates district placement. Sometimes it can be quite a puzzle to solve.
 
Yeah, I have honestly had more frustration with Nine Dragon than I feel I've gotten out of it, although maybe that's becuase the yields are passive so it's easy to overlook them. However there is another boost they can give which I think people are overlooking: you can build on rainforest/marsh from turn 1. If you have a really good campus/holy site spot but with someone else you'd need to get bronze working/irrigation first, Vietnam can build there immediately. This sounds small, but remember, civ is a game of exponential growth and snowballing. Getting a 3 (or higher) yield district on turn 15 instead of turn 40 can make a huge difference in the long run even if the game is 300 turns long
 
although maybe that's becuase the yields are passive so it's easy to overlook them

I was top science and and top culture on standard map on Emperor with only 3 Campuses and 3 TS. Playing a wet map definitely helps with Vietnam but their bonuses do add up.
 
Yeah, while their bonuses are not super over the top, they're a good civ in that their abilities work together, and they have some challenges that are harder to play.

I used the same map seed as Marbozir in his series so played a game with Roraima at me turn 1, and ended up winning on like turn 184 culture. I allied Bologna early, and so I was recruiting a new great general every 10 turns, and basically had the 30% bonus for encampment slotted the whole game as I just got a ton of them around the map.

I didn't once see the passive yields from my buildings built on features - I guess they were there helping in the background, but certainly not a major feature of the civ. But it was still always a neat puzzle trying to fit the districts, and trying to balance chopping vs planting. I also had some fun trying to plan appeal to get some preserves going, and the fact that they can plant trees early on all around them certainly helps there too. It was also a nice little twist to try to manage unit movement to end on forests - although so many times, I would have to micro things more so they don't take that one extra road move to get off a forest.

Voi Chien were absolutely bonkers. Especially since I was killing it with great generals, having crossbows which can take a hit, often with 5-6 movement, can attack, pillage, and then retreat to a forest tile, mother of pearl those things are absolute beasts. And because you know you can retreat, you can be much more aggressive with them - the ability to have a redlined unit attack, retreat to safety, and then take a promotion to heal is amazing.

Overall, I would say they are a very well designed civ. I haven't played against them - I foresee them being absolute pains to go against.
 
I just had my first two runs with Vietnam, and they're becoming my favourite civ !

The district puzzle is really interesting, and not that hard. The features bias gives plenty of possibilities to your first cities, and it's not too long till medieval faires allow you to build just about anywhere. Planting forests uses builder charges, but you spend less in getting rid of features laid where you want to build districts, so in the end, it's not that expensive.
It's easy to have good adjacencies : the 0,5 from a district adds to the 0,5 from, say, a forest for holy sites, so even without mountains you can rely on easy +2 or +3.
The trick is to plan your Thanh from turn 1 so that it benefits from other districts, and gives them more adjacencies.

The benefits from buildings in districts on features don't look so impressive, but in the end, they add up to something nice. +2 science from your holy site with a shrine and a temple are not impressive, but they're free. They allow you to avoid falling back in a specific area, they even help you being competitive in science ; culture is easy to get with the Thanh.
The earth goddess pantheon is especially good : a district that gives appeal built on a forest means double appeal for neighbouring tiles !

The only difficulty, particularly frustrating, is building around the floodplains. Having an IZ that benefits from an aquaduct and a dam is a massive source of headaches, as well as good harbor/CH triangles. But it's manageable.

Next game is playing them agressively, using woods and Voi Chien !
 
This has probably already been mentioned in this thread, sorry I haven't read the whole thing. But Vietnam seems to have no way to build Amundsen-Scott research station. I realize after I have just now placed a useless city in the snow. Oh well, I guess I'll build a harbor there. Sometimes it's hard to get out of old ways of thinking. I do like Vietnam, but I'm still not that big of fan of placing districts on forests and such. I often lumbermill those for production.
 
This has probably already been mentioned in this thread, sorry I haven't read the whole thing. But Vietnam seems to have no way to build Amundsen-Scott research station. I realize after I have just now placed a useless city in the snow. Oh well, I guess I'll build a harbor there. Sometimes it's hard to get out of old ways of thinking. I do like Vietnam, but I'm still not that big of fan of placing districts on forests and such. I often lumbermill those for production.

I see that it is a harder, probably even a lot...but it shouldn't be impossibe: Given that you settle somewhere on the edge of tundra and snow...shouldn't it be possible to built the Campus on a tundra forest located adjacent to a snow tile, where the ASRS can be placed?

EDIT: Corrected typo.
 
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Campus on a tundra forest located adjacent to a snow tile, where the ASRS can be placed?

Yes, the Campus doesn't have to be on snow, just the ASRS. I've done that way before as civs other than Vietnam.
 
Yes, the Campus doesn't have to be on snow, just the ASRS. I've done that way before as civs other than Vietnam.

I could have swore that the description said the campus also had to be on the snow. Checking it now...

As usual with this wonder, the wording could be more clear. It says: Must be built next to a campus with a research lab on a snow or snow hills tile. I figured both had to be on snow, the sentence doesn't specify what subject the snow or snow hills tile refers to, though common sense would dictate it's for the wonder. For some reason I always thought it was both. Luckily I see a tundra with forest (I can't place forest on tundra myself unfortunately) that I can build on that is next to the snow. Just have to wait until population 4 since I already started the harbor.
 
This has probably already been mentioned in this thread, sorry I haven't read the whole thing. But Vietnam seems to have no way to build Amundsen-Scott research station. I realize after I have just now placed a useless city in the snow. Oh well, I guess I'll build a harbor there. Sometimes it's hard to get out of old ways of thinking. I do like Vietnam, but I'm still not that big of fan of placing districts on forests and such. I often lumbermill those for production.
Who the hecks builds this wonder unless you are playing either Russia or Canada?
 
As usual with this wonder, the wording could be more clear. It says: Must be built next to a campus with a research lab on a snow or snow hills tile.

The terrain description always refers to the wonder itself and never any district or improvement it has to be adjacent to.

Who the hecks builds this wonder unless you are playing either Russia or Canada?

People who like building wonders in general and harder to get ones specifically? Sometimes you just come across a perfect location for it so, why not?
 
The terrain description always refers to the wonder itself and never any district or improvement it has to be adjacent to.



People who like building wonders in general and harder to get ones specifically? Sometimes you just come across a perfect location for it so, why not?
*shurgs* for me that wounder is dead if I am not playing Russia or Canada.
 
*shurgs* for me that wounder is dead if I am not playing Russia or Canada.

I had a great chance to build it the other day when I was playing a science-focused game as Portugal. There was a great island that was about half tundra, half snow, with a bunch of sea resources around. I got a nice campus from the mountains and reefs, then built ASRS. I mean, why not? Bonus science and it's fun. Portugal has basically infinite trade routes with crazy yields, so it wasn't hard to get enough production, even in a newish tundra city.

Does anyone else have a bug where you meet an AI Vietnam and then the music never stops, no matter what else you do? Like, even going back to the main menu or starting a new game doesn't stop Vietnam's music from playing. It even plays on top of other music. I mean, it's great music and all, but this is a bit much!
 
did anyone try vietnam in wetlands map? They are insanely good... especially if you set temperature with wet... plus the new Etemenanki wonder and Vietnam became A+civ.
 
Wetlands map is disappointing, since it is essentially "continents" with hot/wet turned on, and "continents" is THE most boring map - just two big rectangles of land, nothing like real continents. No capes, no bays, no peninsulas. Better is Vietnam plus Primeval map.
 
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