Korean Golden Age Question

[Ghengis-Sean]

Okay, here's a question for all you smart kids out there. When a Civ's UU kills something for the first time your Civ rolls into a Golden Age. Now Korea's UU is that Rocket launcher thingy; the hwach'a (how in the hell is that supposed to be pronounced by the way?) Any way, the question is, the hwach'a a bombarment unit, when was the last time you bombarded someone to death???

I mean a cannon can do 1 hp of damage, no matter how cool the hwach'a is, it's going to be a pain in the but to go out and actually KILL something with it. Artillery is not designed to kill in this game, it's designed to soften units up so your attack units can kill them off. Killing something with the hwach'a is going to be tricky I think.

So I guess the Koreans either get really lucky with their rocket launcher, or they build a wonder and get lucky from that. Sucks to be them.

[NeoStar]

Maybe it would work as long as they get their first hit. Reducing HP is a 'kill' for artillery. I'll be very surprsed if what your saying is true - that would be a dum mistake considering the time spent on PTW.

[WarpStorm]

Firaxis has said in one of the chats that they get their GA thorough wonder building. From experience with the unit, I believe them.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Yeah, that's what I thought. to be honest, i'm probably going to not use the Koreans, give their unit to the Chinese, and ditch the Rider. I love the Rider, but it's kind of silly for the Chinese to have a better mounted unit than the Mongols (come on how can you not love those lovable lugs!!!!)

Like your water-colors by the way

[Argos65987]

I'm not at home to check right now, but I thought the hwach'a had lethal land bombardment turned on. I'll check tonite if no one checks the unit in the editor and posts here before then.

[Sheik]

It does not have any lethal bombard but does have the starts golden age flag checked.

[Randolph]

I thought it did have lethal bombardment? I haven't checked the editor though.

[Minmaster]

it says it does on civ3.com civ profiles, but it doesnt in actual game.

[Boris Godunov]

Yeah, the Koreans kinda get shafted here. I am tempted to switch their UU with something else so the playing field is even.

[Randolph]

In that case I plan on giving it LB in my game (I'm sure everyone really cares)

[Robber Baron]

So will modding the unit to lethal bombardment give it the power to trigger a GA?

[WarpStorm]

Yes, but it may be a bit unbalanced (although that's what we did in the BTM).

[Kingof the Apes]

What are the Koreans civ traits?
And what is the Hwacha's stats?


I certainly think that Korea would be one of the most interesting new civs to play, as they have the strangest UU.

[Ghengis-Sean]

The Koreans are a Commercial Scientific civ, and the Hwach'a replaces the cannon, has a move of 1, ROF 1, bombard 12 (versus the cannon's 8) . Based on the artwork I'm assuming that it's some kind of rocket launcher, which is pretty good figuring that artillery also has a bombard of 12. It's a good unit, just don't expect to rush out and start your golden age off. Generally speaking I don't tend to build alot of artillery units, so I'm not sure how hot I am to try this one out.

A better unit might be the "Turtle" ships the Koreans used to cut the Japanese army off from Japan with (thereby forcing the Japan to get out of Korea) in the 1590's. They were a sort of armor plated galleon, used to interdict shipping. Considering the Koreans were never really noted for amazing artillery, it's interesting that Firaxis chose this particular unit. Of course alot of their other choices are pretty goofy too, the Berserk requires INVENTION??? uh, my history might be off but didn't the Vikings come BEFORE knights and pikeman and longbowmen? and the reason they went away is because knights and longbowman and pikeman sort of beat them out? Well not in Firaxis land apparently

[Chronus]

I certainly think that Korea would be one of the most interesting new civs to play, as they have the strangest UU.

I played as the Koreans in my second game. Good game! (even though I lost)

Anyway, the part that kind of throws me off is this: catapults and hwach'as can upgrade to artillery . . . but cannons cannot???? At least, that's according to the Civilopedia. I haven't tried upgrading a cannon yet so I was wondering if someone can confirm this.

[CJM]

Can you even build cannons as the Koreans? Or does the hwach'a replace it? I wonder this, first, because I don't have my manual handy and can't recall, and second, because the C'pedia is somewhat dynamic; the upgrade paths described take into account UU's. Maybe the C'pedia is not showing cannons as upgradable because you cannot build them...?

[Randolph]

you can upgrade cannons to artillery

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Chronus
Anyway, the part that kind of throws me off is this: catapults and hwach'as can upgrade to artillery . . . but cannons cannot???? At least, that's according to the Civilopedia. I haven't tried upgrading a cannon yet so I was wondering if someone can confirm this.

Cannons DO upgrade to artillery. Personally upgraded some yesterday, playing my second PtW game (which I lost, too ).

Koreans were one of my rivals in that game and, guys, they rocked! The commercial+scientific combo made them RICH. I have never seen an AI civ wallowing in so much money (Standard Map, Monarch: 15000+ gold in 1600's? ...). And they had just an ordinary sized (maybe even a bit smaller than others) empire.

The funny thing was that they built the UN (yes, I know, I sucked terribly... ...but can you imagine fighting not a single war throughout the whole game? Not a single leader, no GA... next time, I will allow myself at least a small war... ), prevented the vote at first, but 11 turns later, allowed the vote to take place. Guess what? They lost to Cathy...

[DilithiumDad]

I do build a lot of artillery so I chose Korea for my first PTW game. I am in the Modern Era now and have not gotten a golden age!! This despite having build Newton's, Theory of Evolution and SETI, all of which are Scientific and should have netted me a Golden Age! I will have to get a Golden Age by building The Internet.

The rocket launcher does NOT have lethal bombard, despite claims to the contrary, and successful use does not trigger Golden Age. Worse still, catapults cannot be upgraded to rocket launchers, which have to be build from scratch. So you are stuck with all your catapults until Replaceable Parts!

Koreans really got the shaft. They have a lot of possibilities --same characteristics as the Greeks with a later Golden Age and an interesting UU --so hopefully this will be fixed in the next patch!!

[Randolph]

I don't think you're going to get a GA from the Internet, you need to build a wonder for each of your two traits. So to get a GA you'll need to build a commercial wonder.

[joncnunn]

DilithiumDad, Build the UN now if you want a GA, as I recall it's the only Commerical Wonder in the modern era.

There is another alternative though:

Capture any Commerical Great Wonder and then build any Great Wonder. (Basically, it looks like the Wonder Golden Age code works like every time you build any Great Wonder it checks to see if you now have control over both traights if you haven't had your GA yet.)

In a future game as the Koreans, I'd recommend making either the Collosus or Adam Smith's a higher priority.

[Catt]

The Internet triggers a golden age for whoever builds it (if they haven't already had one, that is). It is a religious-scientific-commercial-expansionist-militaristic-industrious wonder

Catt

[Ghengis-Sean]

according to the Civlopdea, if you build the internet you'll get a golden age (if you haven't had one already) regardless of what your civ stats are.

The problem with Korea getting a golden age from a wonder is that none of the wonders are both Commercial and scientific. The Chinese are militaaristic and Industrious, so if they build the Great Wall, off they go.

Korea is pretty screwed as far as Golden ages go. As a civ, they do pretty well, at least in my games (all three of them) not too big, not too bad, but decent, great culture, and wealthy. A Golden Age could push them from being good to great. Did Firaxis play test this? Didn't one of the players say, hey, Korea doesn't get golden ages, what's the deal? I guess everyone was playing the mongols

[WarpStorm]

A lot of the beta testers thought it should have lethal land bombard (and in the BTM it does). If you do that though, the Koreans can become very powerful especially in the hands of a warmonger.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Ghengis-Sean
The problem with Korea getting a golden age from a wonder is that none of the wonders are both Commercial and scientific. The Chinese are militaaristic and Industrious, so if they build the Great Wall, off they go.

Granting that the Internet comes very late (if not too late) in the game, and also risking becoming a repetitive old bore (see my above post), the Internet is a commercial and scientific wonder.

[Chronus]

Well, I'm slightly confused. I thought building the right wonders MAY trigger a Golden Age . . . no guarantees.

And I thought a UU had to DESTROY another unit to trigger a GA. I know I read somewhere that the Korean's UU could not trigger a GA for this very reason.

When I was the Koreans, I received my GA after building the Great Library and that funky Adam's Stock Exchange (whatever it's called). And I suspect my UU played an important part in defeating the Japanese. Although I wasn't doing well against their Samauri, my UU destroyed their barracks in their capital city. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Ya know, losing to a good game really isn't all that bad.

[Zero]

First of all this post has been filled with many many confusion among whats said in manual, chat and in civlopedia. If you played civ 3 already you should know no source is 100% reliable since they make llast minute changes and they just stupidly make errors sometimes.

anyway, like warpstorm says, you can't give them a lethal bombardment cause that would make them TOO powerful. I agree. Hwach'a is a great UU its just that it can't trigger a GA (huge handicapp) but with lethal bombardment, that will make it almost godly... Players who make 30+ artillery know what I'm talking about. We're talking something of a equivalent to a unit that can shoot out mini cruise missles every turn without killing itself. Thats sick. Why even radar artillery will look inferior to the mighty hwach'a w/ lethal bombard...

any experienced early industrial era warmongers will tell you artillery support is crucial in times when defense seems to reign supreme. Having a UU not too far around that era, PLUS being lethal will just totally unbalance the game.

Tho I don't think Hwach'a is terrible or godly, In my mod, i took out the hwach'a and gave the korean a UU longbowmen. They are 5/1/1 same cost. they are pretty famous for their archery skills so i thought it was appropriate.

Americans have the same problem except the air superiority option allows you to intercept enemy aircraft... so they can get away with not having to rely entirely on wonder building. Still, US and Korea is pretty much on the same boat in that they often rely on wonder build.

I generally rely on wonder building as a trigger to GA, I understand this method is a bit trickier then having a UU win a battle, but I find civ like aztec, iroquois, persia, rome and especially greek and zulu annoying because of their early GA. I prefer to have mine at mid to late Medieval age as much as possible. God I hate having primary defender as UU since when enemy comes to attack, you have no choice but to cause GA!

[kring]

Originally posted by Chronus
Well, I'm slightly confused. I thought building the right wonders MAY trigger a Golden Age . . . no guarantees.

And I thought a UU had to DESTROY another unit to trigger a GA. I know I read somewhere that the Korean's UU could not trigger a GA for this very reason.

When I was the Koreans, I received my GA after building the Great Library and that funky Adam's Stock Exchange (whatever it's called). And I suspect my UU played an important part in defeating the Japanese. Although I wasn't doing well against their Samauri, my UU destroyed their barracks in their capital city. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Ya know, losing to a good game really isn't all that bad.

The word may is because you only get one GA per game. If you have already gotten a GA, then building Wonder(s) that match your civ traits won't give you another one. If you haven't gotten a GA already, and build one or more Wonder(s) that match both your civ traits, then you will get a GA guaranteed.

A UU does have to destroy something to create a GA; the English MoW can destroy a naval unit; the F15 can destroy an air unit to create GA's for those two civs.

[Randolph]

ahhh... I haven't played that far in PtW, I stand corrected.

[Zero]

All civs should have two UUs.. how cool would that be?