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

[AmazonQueen]

I can see a case for Canada getting a bit more of a bonus than just building farms on Tundra.
Russia gets +1 production and faith without building anything. If Canadian tundra farms got +1 culture as well it would make them a bit more worthwhile without being overpowered.
Still I think the main intent of the tundra farms is to help Canada with exploiting the riches of the north, oil, iron etc.

 

[sonicmyst]

I see when playing Canada:
1. Suzerainty amd alliances are important
2. Internal trade routes for some food
3. Early wonders for tourism
4. Culture and Holy Site districts for GW and religious tourism
5. Always participate in emergencies

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I see when playing Canada:
1. Suzerainty amd alliances are important
2. Internal trade routes for some food
3. Early wonders for tourism
4. Culture and Holy Site districts for GW and religious tourism
5. Always participate in emergencies

Skip the Holy Sites. Religious Tourism is inconsequential and Canada doesn't need the Faith. Double down on the Theater Squares and Commerce Hubs.

 

[UWHabs]

Skip the Holy Sites. Religious Tourism is inconsequential and Canada doesn't need the Faith. Double down on the Theater Squares and Commerce Hubs.

I would skip theatres with them, personally, and focus on commerce hubs. Depending exactly when the hockey arenas come, that's 4-6 culture per city that you can get if you plan it right, which is enough to get going and not fall too far behind. But because they're going to be terrible for production, getting as many trade routes and and much money as possible will be king for them. It's also critical for them to plan their entertainment complexes to maximize hockey rink adjacency if they do go for that really late culture push.

I would be tempted by religion sometimes with them. If you either get Dance of the Aurora, Choral Music, or Feed the World, there's a large extra source of Faith/Culture/Food that can be quite useful. Just because you don't need faith for naturalists, you might still want to faith-buy Mounties since production will be hard to come by. If you do have it setup right, you could even skip the money focus and run a faith-based tundra economy, although really, anyone else could do that too so it's not like the civ has a special focus for that other than a tundra-bias, presumably. But crucial to remember that they'll have very few cities get past size 4 until you get to modern farming, so planning districts will be essential. I'd guess as Canada you end up wanting to settle cities all around the coast of the tundra in general, so they might also end up running a very large harbour-based economy, which at least will get a small boost now that they get bonuses for city-states.

 

[sonicmyst]

Skip the Holy Sites. Religious Tourism is inconsequential and Canada doesn't need the Faith. Double down on the Theater Squares and Commerce Hubs.

But religious tourism may give also diplomatic favors right?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

But religious tourism may give also diplomatic favors right?

1% of Tourism is Diplomatic Favor. Religious Tourism is tiny (8 points for the Holy City, IIRC) unless you build Mt. St. Michelle and get a ton of relics. That's a huge investment in religion when other means of getting Tourism are easier.

@UWHabs Canada probably won't get Hockey Rinks until at least mid-game. You're going to want to rush through the Civics tree to get Feudalism so you can get more comfortable in the Tundra before that. Commercial Hubs are important, but Canada needs Theater Squares as an early game crutch until Hockey Rinks are available.

 

[Pietato]

I can see a case for Canada getting a bit more of a bonus than just building farms on Tundra.
Russia gets +1 production and faith without building anything. If Canadian tundra farms got +1 culture as well it would make them a bit more worthwhile without being overpowered.
Still I think the main intent of the tundra farms is to help Canada with exploiting the riches of the north, oil, iron etc.

There is no iron in tundra.

Edit - I am wrong. Tundra hills can have it.

 

[Pietato]

Canada are rubbish.

- The main strategic resources from snow and tundra are coal, oil and uranium.
- You need a stadium for the ice hockey rink to be good.
- Tundra still sucks for them until modern era.

They have no cultural boosts to get to the stage they can actually use the tundra. They are just bad.

Edit - I forgot hills.

 

[AmazonQueen]

There is no iron in tundra.

Now that you are wrong on.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Now that you are wrong on.

edit: I've defnitely seen iron in tundra.
According to the wiki the only requirement for iron is hills, of which there are plenty in tundra areas.

 

[Pietato]

edit: I've defnitely seen iron in tundra.
According to the wiki the only requirement for iron is hills, of which there are plenty in tundra areas.

My bad. I was neglecting the hill modifier. Normal tundra cannot have iron, but tundra hills can. Will edit my above post to reflect this.

 

[bite]

I wonder if they will tweak the resource finds on Tundra to make them a little bit more appealing for Canada

 

[Saltcreek]

I wonder if they will tweak the resource finds on Tundra to make them a little bit more appealing for Canada

I was wondering about this too because as it stands you cannot find coal or aluminum in tundra. Also, a tundra city will be flat out worse than a plains (not even going to talk about grassland or grassland/plains mixed) city with the same tiles. Outside the hockey rink there is not much reason to build in the tundra unless there is an important strategic however this applies to all civs except Russia.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I think Canada will provide interesting early game expansion opportunities for players who want to increase their number of cities peacefully. Though I really wish they would've gotten free builders when settling in tundra. Tundra cities to grab key resources in their case won't have to be limited in growth. I can see some interesting play styles when combining their bonus with the golden era bonus that makes settlers and builders cheaper, once you've settled all your non-tundra spots, you can go for good spots in the tundra and have those cities to build key districts in too.

 

[Saltcreek]

So any thoughts after the live stream? The diplomacy is something Canada may want to play but I am not sure if this is early game or not. From what was said on the live stream I think the diplomacy is more a mid to late game thing. Being able to make an "easy" national park could be powerful so that could be cool but this is a late game perk.

I did have to chuckle at the fact that there were zero tundra farms and I am not confident that the early game or early tundra will all that unique or valuable.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

So any thoughts after the live stream? The diplomacy is something Canada may want to play but I am not sure if this is early game or not. From what was said on the live stream I think the diplomacy is more a mid to late game thing. Being able to make an "easy" national park could be powerful so that could be cool but this is a late game perk.

I did have to chuckle at the fact that there were zero tundra farms and I am not confident that the early game or early tundra will all that unique or valuable.

To me, it all still comes down to whether you can leverage the "No Surprise Wars" ability and "double consumable resources on tundra" abilities into a larger settler rush than most civs. If you can, you can claim more territory and set up yourself up to be well positioned for the late game. If you can't, Canada will probably be like a stronger edition of Georgia: the civ you pick when you want a more difficult game than normal.

 

[Disgustipated]

Skip the Holy Sites. Religious Tourism is inconsequential and Canada doesn't need the Faith. Double down on the Theater Squares and Commerce Hubs.

Of course now after the stream we may be tempted to build holy sites for the rock bands. We have to have Rush in the game somehow. I'm still not sure how necessary these will be. It's possible you can cruise to a culture victory without them, but rock bands probably will speed things up significantly, and on higher difficulty levels you will most likely need them.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I was going to say "How about Tundra farms getting adjacency bonuses from other farms right from the beginning?" but even that just brings them up to par with grasslands farms without the bonuses, I think...

So, how about that, and also +1 extra food? Or only needing one adjacy farm for the bonus? Something like that.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Of course now after the stream we may be tempted to build holy sites for the rock bands. We have to have Rush in the game somehow. I'm still not sure how necessary these will be. It's possible you can cruise to a culture victory without them, but rock bands probably will speed things up significantly, and on higher difficulty levels you will most likely need them.

Okay, but don't waste your early game on it. Gotta rush through that Civics tree.

 

[godeater]

The first among equals for Canadian rock bands has to be the Tragically Hip.