[GS] Will Canada offer a unique early game play experience?

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I`m trying to figure out whether the Canadian civ will offer anything unique from a playstyle perspective in the early game.

So far, my thinking goes as follows.

Unique early game settling considerations

Tundra is as bad for Canada as it is for most any other civ, with two exceptions:

1. You want strategic resources (technically "consumable resources" - not sure if this is different from strategic resources as of GS) based in the tundra, for the double production.
2. You want to carve out future space to lay Hockey Rinks adjacent to snow and tundra.

The tundra farm will usually be a waste of a Builder charge, bringing a tile up to only 2F 0P, so break even for a Pop to work. There may be special tundra along flood plains, volcanoes, wonders, that change the equation. For the most part, though, I think in the early game Canada will be incentivized to seek:

• city sites adjacent to, but not in tundra
• city sites in tundra with abundant sea resources

Since you'll roll the map you roll, I`m not sure this changes game play strategy too much, but it does create slightly different criteria when evaluating "where do I settle?"


Unique military considerations

Canada can`t conquer city states, so early military doesn't offer any benefit on that front.

Canada also can`t be attacked until a Formal War becomes available. In multi-player, this is a non factor, as a neighbour can Denounce you immediately. On single player, however, the AI is unlikely to Denounce you until you've violated an agenda, settled too close to them, etc. The current Deity Warrior rush is unlikely to be available against Canada.

This allows Canada to limit their early military builds to the bare minimum needed to deal with Barbarians. That allows them to place less early emphasis on Agoge, and greater emphasis on Colonization for the Settler boost.

You won't want to ignore early military completely as (at least as of R&F) the game encourages you to build Ancient Era units and upgrade them forever. Since you don't have to worry about a Surprise War, however, you have even less incentive than other civs to upgrade your military until you need to (have been Denounced, for example). You can basically save extra gold per turn by maintaining behind era units, upgrading only if you`re denounced or you break a promise. Again, all civs can do this, so it`s not `unique`, but it`s safer for Canada given the immunity to Surprise Wars.

There doesn't seem to be much downside to Canada from the "no Surprise Wars", other than a little advance planning, as you can Denounce any civ you want to attack. I guess Cyrus is going to be difficult to keep happy, though.

Assuming you're playing Canada because you don't want to beat up the AI, it looks like you can leverage the "no surprise wars" benefit into minimizing the early investment in military, allowing you to focus mostly on early Scouts and Settlers. You'll likely still want an extra Warrior and Slinger, though, to farm Barbarian camps.


Unique AI relationship considerations

The main things here appear to be:

• if you`re generating double resource production from tundra resources, you have more to sell to the AI for gold
• you have more incentive to avoid triggering causus belli or triggering denouncements, because you can`t be attacked without one or the other

Later game, other game play considerations presumably open up related to the Diplomatic Favour bonuses from emergencies and tourism, but early on these aren`t in play.


Summation

To the extent that there`s any unique gameplay angle to Canada in the early eras, it appears to be:

• locate good city sites that are close to, but not in, tundra, or are in tundra but offer enough Food to be self sustaining
• take advantage of not needing as big an early army to rush Settlers to grab those places
• buy tundra resource sites as soon as possible, then sell the extra production to the AI for extra gold
• save additional gold on military by maintaining `behind era` military units when a Formal War is not possible
• reinvest that gold in even more Settlers to stake out as big a territory as possible; at only one Hockey Rink per city, you`ll need as many cities as possible, with high tundra / snow adjacencies, to play catch up on Culture/Tourists once the Hockey Rink becomes available
• maintain good AI relationships to avoid any potential of being attacked, saving even more production / funds on early military, and possibly then leveraging this into early Alliances (and their attendant Diplomatic Favours)

Thoughts?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I agree with a lot you said here. Canada wants to be tundra-adjacent until they get to Feudalism unless they find special spots with increased Food for whatever reason. I don't think Canada will want to lag behind militarily because they will still probably want to take out an early neighbor for breathing room. Not that the other civ will be encroaching on Canada's tundra space, but rather Canada may want to extend into the middle latitudes for luxuries, strategics, or nice mountain spots for later National Parks. Also, for the various military emergencies that they may want to participate in for that sweet, sweet Diplomatic Favor.

I'm told that "massing troops on my border" is a formal war. So that's Canada's ticket to quick early wars (and early wars against Canada).

Canada is going to want to move quickly through the Civics tree to get to Feudalism in order to move fully into the tundra. So they want to prioritize laying down Theater Squares to facilitate that. But don't forget Campuses to keep your expeditionary force up to snuff.

 

[Saltcreek]

Early culture will be key as Canada is partly gutted without the tundra. Hopefully the ice rink is fairly early in the civics tree so there is a reason for early tundra expansion in which can make a quick play for feudalism. I just get the vibe that Canada will always be playing catch up to the rest of the civs because there is no early game accelerator or potential snowball effect to play off of.

 

[Archon_Wing]

If the game strategy remains the way as is, they'd probably be the worst civ. Tundra farms would still be bad. . The Rinks would suffer the same problem as Golf Courses. I think they may have the same issue with America in things coming too late.

Not being able to be surprise war'd is a good passive defense I guess. and they'd probably be clear cutting tundra spots; looks like they'd have to make a lot of cities. Being unable to attack City States seems like a huge disadvantage and I think that should not be a thing.

Diplomatic favor being gotten from tourism might be interesting, and trying to go for both might help.

However, I would hope GS games will last longer, allowing them to be able to take advtange of their abilities. Ironically,I think they'll be competing with Georgia for diplomatic victory lel.

 

[Cagarustus]

What I’m concerned about the inability of the AI od to declare surprise wars is that it gives Fireaxis a ‘don’t need to fix the AI’ free card because if people complain about arbitrary war declarations in the classical era, tou can simply say: “Play Canada!”

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I would probably focus on leader agendas and city state quests more than I usually would with a view to building strong relationships and envoys for a diplo victory. The tundra part will possibly be a challenge but there are often lots of resources in tundra and the addition of volcanoes and flooding may help make more tundra tiles viable.

 

[ezzlar]

It still feels like tundra goes from bad to bearly acceptable (after a few good civics). I am not sure why I would want this.

And the surprise war immunity, it's just a five turn breather before Formal War kicks in. And on higher difficulties you are probably getting denounced early.

 

[gozpel]

Food triangles in the tundra is good, but the problem will be hammers. And you can also throw down your districts on ice,
if I'm not mistaken. I never tried it myself, I shun tundra like the AI, except when playing as Peter, who is visibly strong on tundra-tiles.

You can still wage wars, but have to be careful and take it slowly. On Deity you just have to sit back and defend for a number of turns,
until you can counter. This is a difficult position for a player like me on Deity. But before we know more, I'm not against this new CIV,
we just need to try it.

The new Diplomatic system might be fun too, helping someone that had a disaster from natural features might give us a kick,

We will see.

 

[bite]

I quite like their bonuses, but yes the one big drawback will be production unless you get a bunch of strategics

 

[Martinus]

Not sure if the AI is going to take this into account when considering invading Canada, but the fact that the tundra bonuses (presumably) go away if a Canadian city is conquered by another Civ, it also should discourage investing into invasion of Canada - as the cost/benefit analysis would be much worse compared to invading a civ with plump, temperate climate cities.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

To me, Canada is probably better if they don't have Tundra bias, which more likely than not they will. Their bonuses don't make them thrive in tundras, but make it somewhat more survivable. You don't want to waste builder charges to build farms on tundras before Feudalism, and although we don't know this for sure, we can assume Ice hockey rink would be available somewhere in Renaissance or later. Overall, they look like they will be better off spawning somewhere else and then colonize tundra tiles when they have the tools to make it work. If you spawn right on tundras which you will most of the time based on your start bias, most of the game will be a catch-up game.

 

[Disgustipated]

throw down your districts on ice,

You can throw them down on snow, not ice. Something I do when I'm going for Asmudsen-Scott wonder.

 

[King William I]

I don't think the farms are good for food but rather housing. Any city can grow with domestic trade routes, heck theres not even ant reason to use international routes until you have alliances, which is right around the time Feudalism kicks in.

And they're not gutted without tundra as some suggest. All their other bonuses work just as well in any area of the map.

 

[MaryKB]

I don't imagine I'll build my cities completely up in Tundra, but I'll build them alongside, with numerous Tundra hexes inside my borders. You can still have things like rivers which should help your farms, and bonus resources and such, I don't imagine it's going to be like trying to survive in a desert.

I think too without being able to declare surprise war, I won't be worrying about trying to conquer my first neighbor, since I won't be able to do that. I'm a very passive player, and I really love this idea of being able to just relax when I start my games and not worry about early war (I rarely get denounced early). I don't feel there's anything wrong with a civilization having more of a late-game focus, I think it depends quite a lot on just how you like to play.

I look forward to building my peaceful nation with hockey rinks all over my undesirable land, lol.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think whether they're any good depends on how diplomacy and the resources shake out. Without knowing anything but the basics of those new systems, I'm having a hard time. I'm not sure that putting a farm on a crappy tile puts them ahead of other civs.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think whether they're any good depends on how diplomacy and the resources shake out. Without knowing anything but the basics of those new systems, I'm having a hard time. I'm not sure that putting a farm on a crappy tile puts them ahead of other civs.

It won't, but unless there are changes in GS to boost the benefit of higher pop cities (and I hope there are), food is an unimportant resource anyway. Canada may end up being easier for newbies because the lack of food will slow their population growth naturally, which is something you should do anyway once you're up to size 4 or so, to help you catch up to and pass the AI at higher difficulty levels.

For me, the question isn't whether they're any good, but whether they will require / reward playing the game in a different way. With the number of civs we have already, that's ultimately my only care in any new civ. And mostly that's about whether you will want to play the civ differently in the early era, as if you get late game bonuses anyway without having to do anything different in the first half of the game, that feels less rewarding than late game bonuses that are enhanced because you played well up to that time to earn them.

 

[Scaramanga]

They will certainly be unique in multiplayer where everyone just surprise wars each other, to the point where they might receive bans.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

They will certainly be unique in multiplayer where everyone just surprise wars each other, to the point where they might receive bans.

My first thought is they would be treated like Genghis and auto-warred (auto-denounced in Canada's case), but on reflection, I'm not sure.

Spawning next to Canada means that you have a border where you know you can't be surprise warred on. So maybe you use that to your advantage to throw all your military against another neighbour. Or to skimp on military production in the first few turns in order to get your engine up.

It will be easier to trust Canada as a neighbour, and that likely changes the dynamics of the game in multiplayer.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

My first thought is they would be treated like Genghis and auto-warred (auto-denounced in Canada's case), but on reflection, I'm not sure.

Spawning next to Canada means that you have a border where you know you can't be surprise warred on. So maybe you use that to your advantage to throw all your military against another neighbour. Or to skimp on military production in the first few turns in order to get your engine up.

It will be easier to trust Canada as a neighbour, and that likely changes the dynamics of the game in multiplayer.

Yeah, except for them expanding into "your" land you could practically treat them like a wall of mountains.

 

[Scaramanga]

Canada/US is the longest undefended border so there is a lot of trust there.

They seem a lot like Australia where they can expand leisurely without worry of attack. Very annoying if they are encroaching on you.