[NFP] Vietnam Discussion Thread

[greenOak]

Not sure if its been mentioned, but did anyone else notice a bunch of tiles around the preserve having an extra 2 gold on them? It's not the preserve either as one of the affected tiles are not adjacent to it. Might be a Vietnam specific bonus that grants gold on tiles with high appeal ala Bull Moose Teddy.

EDIT: Scrap what I said, I didn't see Reyna in the city.

 

[notNamed]

Most people know about the Russian winter, the Japanese hurricanes, even the "spikes on Bach Dang river" strat is more famous than this one, but the Vietnamese had used it for thousands of years all the way up to the Vietnam war and they still ran the same strat. It is like watching a one-trick pony gamer, kinda boring but effective. I guess dying from poxes is less poetic than a blizzard or a hurricane.
TLDR: Viet are not known for building walls and fortresses, in fact they left it open when the enemies came. The only dynasty that built famous fortresses got crushed by invaders. Representing Viet's defensive capability through walls and not attrition is boring in gameplay and not even that great when it comes to historical representation.

I'd argue the opposite. Sure it's easy to pick one or two wars which align with this notion but it's really far from truth.
For one, it completely ignores that for the most part, the places that Vietnam was invading were even more tropic than Vietnam is itself (Champa, Laos, Cambodia, Siam) and the fact that ignoring a few instances, the people forming most of Chinese armies going into Vietnam were generally Yue. Canton, Yunnan, all places which know all too well what summer heat and jungles are, because they lived in those their whole life themselves. And the Vietnamese armies, for their part, did not really practice guerrila tactics. Local people did oppose the invaders (or did not, like during the Ming invasion), but the army itself really enacted standard manouvers as any other army in the world. Attacking supply lines does not make you a guerrila, it's standard practice in any war. US attacked the Ho Chi Minh trail because doing so disrupted Viet Cong supply lines. That doesn't make Vietnam War a battle between two guerrilas. Same thing with Russian Imperial Army and Napoleon. Yes, the Russians kept retreating, using scorched earth tactics, left Moscow up for grabs before setting it ablaze and harassed the French supply lines with cavalry raids. Kutuzov is not a guerrila leader.

Re fortifications. Yeah, the Ho screwed up severely with the plan to set up a strongpoint. But he's not the first or last on the world stage. Vietnamese history includes a good number of famous and effective fortifications. Take for instance, the Long Wall of Quảng Ngãi, which set the boundaries between the civilisation and wilderness and served to protect the Vietnamese from the people living in the mountains. There's also the Đồng Hới Wall, which was a series of fortifications which held the Trinh lords at bay time and time again and without it being bloody good at it, there would not exist a culturally separate southern Vietnam today.

I fully agree that when going for stereotypes and national images, the guerrila resistance is the main point of pride for most Vietnamese. But it shouldn't be overstated and applied very liberally to everything. Hanoi/Hue fortifications weren't built just to lure tourists in and the Vietnamese Imperial army was never Vietcong with swords and spears. Dong Zhuo sallied out of Luoyang (the capital) when faced with the coalition forces marching against him. He wasn't thrilled to do it, but he had to since staying there would have been suicide. I assure you the soldiers fleeing Hanoi in the face of Mongol advance didn't see it all that differently from him, rather than joyfully dragging everything away and leaving the folks living there to tend to themselves when the enemy arrived. The decisive moments of these wars had really little to do with guerrila warfare or the soldier's inability to take their shirts off, even though they definitely provide an array of options for thematic bonuses (though you could argue Khmer deserve the same if we're talking pure geography taking its toll).

 

[Myomoto]

Remember how the game has been bugging out when putting districts on removable resources in the last few patches (still showing resource icons, etc)? It seems they have been working on this concept of stacking your district on top of features/resources for a while now.

I would fully expect the Vietnam unique encampment to give some kind of major adjacency bonus to other districts, and with the ability to build it wherever. It seems a fair compensation for the other limitation of having to build districts on features.

I'm wondering if Vietnam gets some more baseline defencive bonus for their units. Something like a flat combat modifier bonus inside their own terrain, or better healing inside their own terrain.

 

[MoySauce]

Oh... Ah, well. Geniuses think alike. So credit to the video maker.

Hey! Thanks for the shoutout

I only figured it out after posting the video unfortunately, but I'm glad that I was on the right track.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Hey! Thanks for the shoutout

I only figured it out after posting the video unfortunately, but I'm glad that I was on the right track.

Oh! Welcome to the forums, my good man. We hope you enjoy your time here. Glad you decided to hop on over here.

 

[Potworny]

I've noticed another way we could have determined that the Vietnam leader is female - the Polish YT subtitles refer to them with the female version of the word 'leader', 'warrior' and 'hero'. I think the same goes for Spanish, French, Italian and German subtitles (and possibly more), however not for the Portuguese ones. As far as it goes for Polish, they could have used the masculine grammatical gender to keep it ambiguous (dunno how well anything like that would work for different languages), good try with the they/them though Firaxis.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I've noticed another way we could have determined that the Vietnam leader is female - the Polish YT subtitles refer to them with the female version of the word 'leader', 'warrior' and 'hero'. I think the same goes for Spanish, French, Italian and German subtitles (and possibly more), however not for the Portuguese ones. As far as it goes for Polish, they could have used the masculine grammatical gender to keep it ambiguous (dunno how well anything like that would work for different languages), good try with the they/them though Firaxis.

And they almost got away with it. I'm actually a bit sad for Firaxis, they really tried this time to keep Vietnam's Unique stuff a secret, and then this and other leaks happen.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

And they almost got away with it. I'm actually a bit sad for Firaxis, they really tried this time to keep Vietnam's Unique stuff a secret, and then this and other leaks happen.

At this point, they're not mistakes anymore. It's a craft. It's an art. They design everything in a way that, for the neophyte, the secret is kept intact, but for anyone who tries to dig a little more, they have left so many seemingly unconnected clues that they're just playing with us. I'm sure they're making bets upon seeing which "unintentional" leak will be discovered first.

 

[Zaarin]

And they almost got away with it.

If it weren't for you meddling kids and your dumb dog.

 

[Cerilis]

I've noticed another way we could have determined that the Vietnam leader is female - the Polish YT subtitles refer to them with the female version of the word 'leader', 'warrior' and 'hero'. I think the same goes for Spanish, French, Italian and German subtitles (and possibly more), however not for the Portuguese ones. As far as it goes for Polish, they could have used the masculine grammatical gender to keep it ambiguous (dunno how well anything like that would work for different languages), good try with the they/them though Firaxis.

German subtitles as well. Sorry, we are not that far yet with proper neutral gendering. In fact, we are taking steps backwards...

 

[Jewelrunna]

And they almost got away with it. I'm actually a bit sad for Firaxis, they really tried this time to keep Vietnam's Unique stuff a secret, and then this and other leaks happen.

Never underestimate the Internet's ability to spoil absolutely everything for themselves!

 

[Potworny]

German subtitles as well. Sorry, we are not that far yet with proper neutral gendering. In fact, we are taking steps backwards...

Well, some languages just happen to be structured like this and finding intuitive solution to such issues may be impossible to find (you can't really say that you've done something in the past without using one of the grammatical genders in Polish, it's basically unavoidable in speech). That's why we should cherish the 'they', the inclusive potential of English, I think, is something rare.

And as long as other languages are as they are, we can expect an additional source of clues in new announcements.

 

[Venceslau Pietro Pietra]

German subtitles as well. Sorry, we are not that far yet with proper neutral gendering. In fact, we are taking steps backwards...

Brazilian subs however assures that the leader is a male, also thanks to not having gender neutrality.

 

[SirMediocrity]

I thought about what @DogeEnricoDandolo said about guerilla tactics of Vietnameses being part of their cultural heritage and that a unique encampment is kind of counter-intuitive to this ability, but let's think outside the box (something FXS tended to do more with NFP).

WHAT IF ! You have to build all your specialty districts on passable features EXCEPT for the encampment that must be built on open terrain, and the encampment district + every building in it allows your units garrisoned on a district on a feature to gain additional bonuses to defense? To represent the fact that the encampment is in itself kind of weak (a trap they lure Mongolians in) while the rest of the army is staying steady in their marshes/jungles/forest in optimal defense position, making their encampments weaks but that make stronger other districts?
Could lead to interesting military tactis and make Vietnameses a truly difficult country to invade (which has been the case until... well, the French, but tbh, French aren't real people, they eat frogs and snails, so a humid and hot climate is not that bad).

Correct me if I'm wrong but is it possible that they planted a forest and built the district on it?

 

[AntSou]

The Voi Chien does make more sense than the No Than for why the build cost is higher.

Confirmed it's a War Elephant at 2:48

Edit: More clear here:

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Confirmed it's a War Elephant at 2:48

The eyes of the people on their forums are those of owls and their reflexes faster than a bloody cheetah! How??!!

Anyway, besides my rant, we know it's a Crossbowman Replacement since the Knight was buildable in the Production list, and the Skirmisher is also buildable but not the Crossbowman.

 

[Myomoto]

The eyes of the people on their forums are those of owls and their reflexes faster than a bloody cheetah! How??!!

Anyway, besides my rant, we know it's a Crossbowman Replacement since the Knight was buildable in the Production list, and the Skirmisher is also buildable but not the Crossbowman.

Hmm, but how would you train an elephant to fire a crossbow?

 

[clapyourhands]

Confirmed it's a War Elephant at 2:48

Edit: More clear here:

I am constantly amazed by this place's ability to hone in on the most fleeting details in announcement trailers.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Hmm, but how would you train an elephant to fire a crossbow?

Train the people on the elephant to fire crossbows.

I am constantly amazed by this place's ability to hone in on the most fleeting details in announcement trailers.

It's like everyone is the Flash and an owl at the same time.

 

[AntSou]

I am constantly amazed by this place's ability to hone in on the most fleeting details in announcement trailers.

I only went looking because they blur the elephant at a different point in the video. So I knew there's a good chance it would be unblurred elsewhere.

Again, they left this unblurred most likely on purpose rather than by accident.
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There's something on top of the elephant. I'm looking for a visual reference on google but can't find anything.