The Dutch, unbalanced?

[Ninot]

So I'm playing a game with my buddy, and I thought of sticking this into MP, but I figure it applies in SP too.

Once I get my unique building, which gives me hammers on all the water tiles, I don't see any way an AI or human could keep up with my manufacturing. This seems unbalanced to me.

Of course, a human oponent should play intelligently and go for an all out war before Steam Engine gets researched, and nullify this advantage. Also, it helps that the Dutch UU is pretty weak. All the same, the extra hammers from the unique building create such an advantage for a Dutch player. What was a cash-king city on the coast becomes an unstoppable juggernaut.

Am I wrong?

[LDiCesare]

The Dutch seem strong. I've been playing two games only and the Dutch ai won the first in culture victory and is trying to do so in the second game (but now I won't be surprised).
Its uu is not great but if they start on another continent, east indiamen make it very hard to attack them before you have oil, which means they have dikes. On a water map, they are probably unbalanced, otherwise, they should be targeted early on. And creative+fin is a very good traits combo to boot.

So I'd say they are strong, but not unbalanced. A water map would benefit them a lot but they won't have coastal cities everywhere on many maps.

[MoonWolf]

Some civs will have more benefit from a certain map than others. If it's a lot of land or pangea type map, the Dutch will have limited use of both the UU and UB while others will be stronger.

So, yes, you are wrong

[Swiss Pauli]

The Dutch are very strong, no doubt about it. The UU is situational only, but into the late game, if there's rivers, or coast, they can be awesome.

[Pandemoniak]

At the same time, relying so much on water tiles doesnt make them more vulnerable to blockades ? After all the Ironclad is not so far from Steam Engine, and a few privateers can be a real hassle for them, even with shores defended by the (not so weak in my opinion) East Indian ships.

[Unimatrix11]

The dutch are strong - they were in civ3 and as far as i can tell from my 2 bts games, they are strong again.
The best way to deal with them i figured is to attack them pretty early - they tend to have a weak military, at least early on (noble, medium fractal map, epic). In my current game, Amsterdam has about every wonder of the world in it + the hindu shrine - but now it´s mine . So maybe let them build for a bit, but attack them in time.

[MoonWolf]

Just got to think of: the Dutch UB comes in late mid-game and by then a lot is already settled, so it shouldn't make that big difference except for low producing cities (which anyway won't be that great).

[Pandemoniak]

Originally posted by MoonWolf
Just got to think of: the Dutch UB comes in late mid-game and by then a lot is already settled, so it shouldn't make that big difference except for low producing cities (which anyway won't be that great).

Not so sure. A capital basing its economy on finance and harvesting water tiles suddenly getting lots of extra shield, add the Statues thingie and you got a war machine in the early industrial age.

But, yeah, as you say, hit them early and hit them strong. But only once they build you all plenty of nice thingies to grab

[Freddz]

Re: The Dutch, unbalanced?

Originally posted by Ninot
So I'm playing a game with my buddy, and I thought of sticking this into MP, but I figure it applies in SP too.

Once I get my unique building, which gives me hammers on all the water tiles, I don't see any way an AI or human could keep up with my manufacturing. This seems unbalanced to me.

Of course, a human oponent should play intelligently and go for an all out war before Steam Engine gets researched, and nullify this advantage. Also, it helps that the Dutch UU is pretty weak. All the same, the extra hammers from the unique building create such an advantage for a Dutch player. What was a cash-king city on the coast becomes an unstoppable juggernaut.

Am I wrong?

Nope, not in essence, though saying someone is unstoppable may take it a bit far. Let's just say Holland is a better than average civ, which by logic, makes it unbalanced, big or small. Holland and Portugal are two of my favourite new civs. With Beyond the Sword Firaxis has chosen to include some of the character traits that combines exceptionally well, and I'm sure glad they did! It is a game for chrissakes! In vanilla civ and Warlords I missed the trait combos that combined well. I thought it was a bit of cowardice by Firaxis not to include them AND at the same time balance things out by making unique units and/or buildings slightly better for nations that hasn't got a great character trait combo. Holland and Portugal leaders has traits that IMO opinion combines well.

Now, the unique building is great, isn't i? And with the trait combo it matters not much that their UU is not especially good. For me, that's game fun, but rather than balance out and make their unique building worse, I would rather see something done to some of the civs that are a bit underpowered in terms of unique units/starting technologies/unique buildings/trait combos.

In criticism of Firaxis, I have always felt that the early unique military units last too shortly, or isn't good enough compared to the short life-span they have. Compare that to the advantage of Dike, that though it comes late in the game, has a high percentage of making a huge difference compared to some of the other unique buildings. I would rather see a VERY small part of the bonus some of the early short-span UU get go over to the next upgradable unit if tweaking up some of the weaker ones just slightly make it unbalanced! Usually early UU are only good under specific circumstances and if your have prepared to invade. Many times things develop so a military campaign at that exact point doesn't work, or work for just a very few truns before the rival civ gets a better units, not superfun. Sometimes, very rarely, the campaigns with the UU can last longer, making me enjoy the UU in game fun longer as well. Also getting into a war early gets you hated easily, another disadvantage at times, so one has to be sure one severely handicaps the opponent. Compare that to the unique building of the Dutch (is it Dike?) which is pretty much always great/good to have compared to other unique buildings. That early UU last too shortly is much more of a problem for me, in terms of GAME FUN, than making everything more monotone because of fear you can't balance it correctly. That being said all traits/units/buildings have different effects with different maps. Small maps favour early UU, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't correct it, as the majority of civ-players play standard+ sized maps most of the time.

Another FUN-factor of upping some of the early unique units slightly is that I almost never fear a computer opponent that has gotten their units. I just observe, now he has gotten them, rather than being forced to plan ahead more, to avoid, or prepare for conflict with them because of their slight advantage. I know there will probably be some die-hard civers who do nothing but play civ that will disagree with me. But most of us, are casual gamers, who has not studied every unit number, every little gameplay concept in detail and pondered on them for hours and days etc and can only take advantage of gameplay rules slightly or significantly, but cannot or will not put the time to use the advantages to its edge. For some of us, perhaps many of us, the use of unique units CAN be improved in terms of game fun, with very slight improvements. Anyway, if it becomes to easy with upping those things for die-harders, perhaps they can turn up difficulty one level.

Anyone agree or disagree with that? It would be nice to hear some views.

P.S. No, I don't want to tinker with the files myself. I am a casual gamer

[Krill]

Early UUs can be a boon. Right now I'm playing a monarch level Pangaea map with unrestricted leaders and aggressive AI on. I got an Agg/Cre civ that had warchariots. So far I've killed 4 AIs, and I'm waging war with the last two to stop them growing into all of the open space now. It's turn 165 and I'm still using the WCs because it's so cheap and it can easily dent enemy longbows, for example.

[Jvstin]

I've only played the Dutch once (okay, I am only on my second full game of BTS...). The hammer production combined with the gold and food from settling coasts and rivers is a very strong combination.

As far as the UU's, I've always accepted that some UUs are far more useful than others. I see that as part of the balancing of the civilizations.

[Freddz]

Krill, I agree that the early UU can be quite useful, but many times they really aren't. Pangea is a good map for using an early UU. I almost never play Pangea as that maptype makes naval consideration much less interesting, and doesn't "simulate the world as Earth is" enough for me. With continents some of your rivals would many times be (far?) ahead of you in tech I would imagine, and still keep a significant landmass to be quite a threat or in lead.
I'm not an expert warmonger though, so my reasoning is a bit flavoured from that standpoint. BUT I'd like to hear some warmongers talk me out of my (flawed?) standpoint.

I also agree with you, Jvstin, that it is a balancing issue, but that doesn't mean the UU have to be boring. Some of leaders/civs are a bit like that and the civs/leaders/techs/UBs themselves don't make 'em more fun... I realize this argument is something stereotypes of this forum may attack because of the undeniable fact that taste varies on the subject of what's boring; but I have a feeling there are quite a few who would agree, especially among casual gamers not interested enough to post here.

[Blaupanzer]

The Dutch, as an AI civ, should be dealt with like all creative civs. Kill them or hem them in ASAP. Otherwise, the culture aspect will play havoc all game long. I like their mix on fractal or terra-like maps for my own civ.

[Ninot]

Thanks for all the input guys.

We were playing on a continents map, which would of course give me plenty of coast to work with. I'm afraid he'll catch on now and only want to play Great Plains .

I like your idea Pandemoniak, if he had gone for a strong navy he certainly could have blockaded me. It would quickly have cut off my finance and nullified the effect of levees.

Btw, how many tiles does blockade work on? I cant find it written anywhere.

[dsteckel]

Not sure if it's documented somewhere how many squares are affected, but once you set your naval unit to Blockade, you can click on it again to see the squares it affects.