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I absolutely don't agree with your assessment of Wild Hunters. I don't see them as a military National Spirit, though you have a military component with the bow hunters. I have usually absolutely no problem in building many of them, and playing on huge maps, I have usually many spots where I can send them to harvest exploration XP and improvement points. They are a very powerful tool within the power triangle of production, improvement points, and science. At any rate, I develop much faster with them compared to Naturalists. Wild Hunters give you a fast start with food and culture, and you need only few improvement points to do so (hunting camps cost only 6 IP, only half of the cheapest other improvements). Of course, starting somewhere in age 5 or 6, you may start to replace them, but by then the fast start has already paid off a huge multiple of that investment.
I usually try to play peacefully, so that I seldom pick military National Spirits. I once tried Raiders and found them quite strong - you need to play them utterly aggressive, though, to get the most out of them. You should be the first in Bronze Age, pick them, and go for the military tech in that age asap, then conquer everyone you can reach in time. On a 2-continent map, you should be able to defeat all 3 AIs with the help of them in a very short time. Note that this National Spirit is self-reinforcing since fighting generates more war XP. Afterwards, you can play relaxedly.
I never played Ancient Seafarers so far, At a conversion rate of 10 wealth = 1 production, wealth is extremely weak. Usually, I need wealth just to feed my armies and to pay for chaos events. Starting in the late early game / early midgame I may buy or rush something in my non-vassal region capital cities, but only every now and then (because of the conversion rate you cannot do this often). Putting my population into production is much, much more efficient. If I get 4 prod with 1 pop this would translate to 40 wealth with 1 pop I would have to harvest to get the same amount of production power.
Explorers are the strongest National Spirit in age slot 4 (at least on huge maps). Reasons:
Naturalists don't need improvement points nor do they need to dedicate any pops to food production. Putting basically anybody on forest tiles is quite different from any other National Spirit, getting >90% net benefit per job lot instead of putting 70-80% of your pops on pure maintenance jobs.
Building any improvements beyond the 2-4 you built in your homeland during the Stone Age actively hurts you if done before you are halfway through Age IV. Your strategy needs to change accordingly.
Yes, wealth has a bad translation factor to production (about 4$ instead of 1 production in buildings and job lots and the mentioned 10:1 while buying stuff) - but it can be used everywhere and Ancient Seafarers just plain get a metric ton of it.
One pop in a fishing boat on shells gets you 10 food (already 50-100% better than any other food production job) and 12 wealth on top. You should try it, it's very different from other early strategies and quite fun.
What do you mean by that? "in buildings and job lots"? I have no idea what you're talking about.
AFAIK that is the only conversion rate.
That is the reason why I usually compute 95 wealth to be worth 10 production because of the versatility.
The problem is that you need to find a fitting spot for your capital near the coast with enough forest so that I can build my usual forest town with at least 4 forest around it. 12 wealth translate only to 1.2 production. The food is impressive, but without a healthy production your development will be rather slow. One forest with a forester on it gives me 2 production in total as soon as the town is upgraded to a lumber town without even investing a pop - and you need 20 wealth to compensate that. You need to be able to build the buildings in the capitals fast which helps every aspect of the game so much. High production is the main motor (as in every 4X game I played so far). The power triangle of production, improvement points, and knowledge increases production fastest (everything else is increasing fast as a byproduct).
I disagree, but ok, valid opinion.
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Early improvements without ressource requirements tend to have either two prod, one prod and one improvement point, three food or five gold and one XP if worked. Comparing them, later improvements and even buildings, though those are more difficult to compare due to different tech levels sets a cough comparison between job efficiencies. It's roughly 16$=8 food = 4 prod/improvement points = 2 XP = 1 research. Culture starts out about the same as XP, but doesn't improve very much with tech level, ending up way more valuable than research in later ages. Manufacturing side, not expenditure.
Import prices would be another measurement and is roughly in that ballpark as well, but that's obviously quite limited.
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I rate it way higher, since it can be spent on underdeveloped regions to raise them to the current tech level in just one round (theoretically). That region can be literally a hundred times as valuable in one round instead of naturally growing for literally hundreds of turns.
One one side, the other benefit of Ancient Seafarers is +2 production per harbor. That's as much as a forester, copper mine or limestone quarry. On top of the preexisting 5 $ and 1 XP.
On the other hand, mining towns with clay pits are quite useful early on, if the National Spirit doesn't provide a way to deal with improvement points.
Or you find that forest at the coast. Those spots aren't particularly rare.
Hm. I don't care much about what would be 'equal' in terms of what I could get from 1 pop. I just rate production, research, and improvement points extremely high. Of course, I also want to have as many needs as possible at 200%, but sometimes that's just not possible, or it is more important to finish the next high value building asap (like buffed palazzi if you picked the republic government). The power triangle of production, research, and improvement points is very much self-reinforcing, and everything else is growing fast as a byproduct.
Using this as my main strategic principle, I was able to win a game on turn 189 via the transcendency victory (huge inland-sea map against 7 expert level AI opponents). Though there might be even better strategies I think this is already quite efficient.
I usually use internal trade to accelerate the development of new regions. And of course I just plainly buy buildings there if I have the money. But I can do that only seldom during the first half of the game and much more aggressively during the later stages of the game when you earn tons of money per turn. Overall, raw production power accelerates the game more than just to be versatile. At least, that's my opinion.
Ok, that's interesting. I should give them a try. And I always forget about those clay pits counting for a mining town. Making use of that should increase my playing strenght quite a bit. Thanks!
No, what you get Wild Hunters for is if you have deer nearby. 3-4 deer in age 2 with Wild Hunters is outright broken in how much they can do for you. Get elephants, and you get explore exp. You can finish the WIld Hunter tree in age 2, which only a few other spirits can do.
However, what really sets them aside isn't even the deer and the elephants. There are clusters of livestock around the map - THOSE go absolutely bonkers once you start tiering them up as their meat also gets its culture and improvement point bonus.
Expensive productionwise??? They do have to be "built" but it doesn't take much. With Innovations they get bonuses that pour in XP, IP, money, and Culture. For PURE military, they are probably not as strong as the Military Spirits of the time, but the other value they provide be pretty huge. Raiders are useless after their brief rush. Warriors are not cheap to make, and their value fades but slower than Raiders. Compared with their conventional contemporaries, they are not expensive, let alone very expensive, but in fact inexpensive. The IP they provide will quickly improve Production to eclipse their own production cost.
I do wish their hunting could be assigned to other Cities.
Having tried lots of different spirits, it's hard each time to not take Hunters if there are plains around ... but I consider them to be so strong as to be very nearly an early game win.
Good to discuss the different points of view, I sure get things wrong sometimes. Love the way this game changes the situation and lets you adjust each game. Super excellent piece of design. The differing ideas on what "is" the OP meta show this off well ... more than almost any other similar game this one does that well.
And a slight improvement is not worth your first National Spirit.
As for finishing the National Spirit in Age II, that pretty much applies to any National Spirit except Mound Builder and Olympians. Unless you're spending many of the XP on the powers the National Spirit grants, but that is its own reward and one Wild Hunters cannot provide.
Their problem is that they sit in the middle of all strategies, a true master of none:
- Not military enough to go conquering
- Not enough of an early economic boost to carry a substantial amount of the early economy and get strong regions out of them
- Not enough staying power to get benefits in the midgame
- A very heavy production investment no other National Spirit requires before the regions can provide a decent amount of production
- Gambling with elephant spawns, which may or may not appear only after committing to Wild Hunters
This is just plainly wrong. They add substantially.
Huh? My Bow Hunters usually make into the endgame.
That's wrong. If that was true why am I able to win games with them before turn 190?
That's true. But you won't take them if you hadn't enough deer sitting around.
Not without investing 24 production into each bow hunter. Production that's pretty much only availabe in the homeland and sorely missed upgrading the buildings therein.
Nor are the upgrades to meat particularly strong. An upgrade, yes, but delicacies are almost equal.
Which leaves the improvement points. But many Age II National Spirits have a way of dealing with improvement points and the ones that don't have almost insane benefits otherwise. Or both, I'm looking at you, Moundbuilders.
Being purely present or providing a measurable benefit?
Because sub 190 turns is good, but not reliant on always picking the best choice. Especially since I remember you playing mostly Explorers in Age IV, who shave off 30-50 turns on their own and work pretty much independent from the state of your economy.