Here's what I am talking about. Post by Neilkaz:As many of you may know, I think Palmy is a lousy civ. When I get them in random civs I really have two choices. 1) To really damage the opposition in bronze and 2) To be able to tribute my allies well enough that they are capable of winning the game in bronze or iron.
Palmy has extreme difficulty over coming a BAD starting spot which occasionally leaves me with choice 3) Just trying to survive.
Since I am not often blessed with allies good enough to expertly take advantage of tributes to attack effectively and win the military 2v3, I usually have to resort to case 1.
If I can get a decent and fast semi-boom bronze w/Palmy (21v/15b 14 min) I can often mount a nice attack while still making occasional new workers and upgrading them economically. However, I still am in trouble vs a well executed big boom (29v/23b 14:30) as that economy has more food than mine and thus can expand faster.(Fortunately,most people can't do that or if they can ,they don't have the spot) After both of us get our tool and bronze age economic upgrades the effective percentage differences in gathering rates decline substantially. I honestly need to put "a real hurting on someone" in bronze w/Palmy IMO.
In iron Palmy's army suffers from lack of range. Palmy's scythe have no metalurgy. Palmy lacks good priests to help supports it's eles. Palmy has nothing at all to make it a military stand out in the Iron Age.
The following analysis will show why Palmy's vils are clearly not better than other civs that get all the economic upgrades in Iron !!
If you add up all the cost of the economic upgrades for both civs (wheel included) you'll find that a civ like Hitt spends 2165 res for all the upgrades while Palmy saves 440 on craftsmanship and 300 on coinage for a total of 1425 spent.
Now lets assume that a reasonable mid-iron economy has made 70 REAL vils. You may have a few less alive but some did die along the way.
Now for Hittite 2165/70 = 31 added cost per villager resulting in an effective cost per vil of 81 res.
For Palmy 1425/70 = 20 added and thus resulting in an effective cost per vil of 95 res to get a fully upgraded iron worker assuming you have made 70 of them.
Thus, assuming 70 vils, the Iron age Palmy still costs you over 17% more per worker.
I will now try to show that as a whole, Palmy's workers are no better than Hitt's in iron.
Shorefishing and Hunting.. Palmy is better but honestly how many shorefish and animals are left in mid iron ? You may hunt a stray deer or something but good luck remembering to assign that vil or two back to work during and iron battle. Hunting and SF bonuses are also effectively reduced by any walking. I'll say there is NO real advantage here in mid-iron.
Wood both civs have the same gather rate of 1.155 and the difference in carry rate 14/16 doesn't matter for 40 wood trees (3 trips) There are occasional 75 wood forest trees and these required Hitt to make 5 trips while Palmy needs 6. Thus Hittite-type civs have a very slight wood gathering advantage in iron.
Range of unit is an offshoot of the wood upgrade. Palmy lacks craftsmanship and thus every arrow shot has one less range. This is a SERIOUS disadvantage of the lack of craftsmanship.
Gold Palmy gathers gold at .95 while civ's w/coinage gather it at .935. This very slight advantage(1.6%)is hugely off set by the fact that coinage gives you effectively 25% more gold. Let's say that you have 2 gold mines in your area and they have 6400 gold total. You mine 1400 gold before coinage is done and 5000 after. Coinage thus gives you 1250 extra gold !! Clearly this off sets the tiny gathering speed advantage Palmy now has. Coinage give you free tribute again negating that advantage. Clearly, the Hitt type civs have a gold advantage too.
But wait, neilkaz, you didn't mention trading ! Unfortunately, and as usual, the manual is WRONG about Palmy getting twice as much gold per trip. They don't and have no way to get over 75 gold per trip! The benefit they do have is that they can get more gold from shorter trade routes than other civs can. However, you always won't have good trade routes safely functioning and you have to make the trade boats and give up food or wood to trade. IMO Palmy's trading bonus can rarely offset the lack of coinage. Thus Palmy is clearly inferior in terms of gold when it comes to the ironage.
Stone.. Hitt gathers at 1.05 and Palmy at 1.25.. Palmy is clearly gathering 19% faster here. As you'll normally have only a few guys on a stone mine this won't be reduced much by walking. However, there isn't a ton of stone on most maps and it isn't usuallyas important as gold. Thus, IMO, I'd still rather have coinage than Palmy's 19% faster stone mining capability.
Farming is 12.5 faster for Palmy.. this is nice but slightly offset by the time build the farms and also hurt by the lack of plow and irrigation. You get into a LONG game where you have built 15-20 farms and start having to recycle them and you'll see that having ALL the farm upgrades does indeed help you. I stress that, per my analysis, you need a large scale farming operation to benefit. IMO we can give Palmy only a slight farming advantage in mid-iron (ie effectively less than 10%)
Villagers Palmy's 1 armor and Piercing armor are almost worthless in the face of iron age weaponry. All vils dies when in contact with Iron age weaponry. OK so Palmy has Jihad but so do some other good iron tech civs like Phoe. I will give Palmy vils a tiny advantage due to armor in mid iron.
OK summing it all up in Mid Iron.
Wood very slight disadvantage for Palmy
Range (an off shoot of wood) clear disadvantage for Palmy)
Fish/Hunt no difference.. nothing much left
Gold Clear disadvantage for Palmy (rarely offset by trading) and Gold quantity is very important. With 2 typical mine Palmy mines 6400 while Hitt mines 7650. After ironing Palmy has 5600 gold to use on units/and military upgrades while. Hitt has 6750 gold or over 20% more for the same purpose after coinage.
Stone gathered 19% faster by Palmy.. not at all worthless but no where near as valuable as coinage would be.
Farming maybe at best effectively only 10% faster do to lack of farm upgrades, thus requiring continued rebuilding of farms.
Villagers Palmy's have a tiny advantage do to armor.
OK all in all, I have trouble believing that 19% faster stone mining plus at best 10% faster farming and a tiny vil armor advantage coupled with the chance for somewhat better trading can off set the LARGE benefit of having effectively 20% more gold touse on units.
Even if we give Palmy the benefit of the economic doubt and say that the gathering balances out.. we have one very BIG drawback to the lack of craftmanship and that is RANGE.
In conclusion, IMO, you spend over 17% more per Palmy villager to result in, at best, equivilent gathering while having every arrow shot travel 1 square less.
Thus we see Palmy's large drawbacks in iron. Not to mention their poor, in comparison to other civs, iron army.
IMO, in a well played 3v3,Palmy should not even bother to spend 1800 res and Iron and produce iron age units unless your allies are near their pop limits and you collectively need the military you can produce. Other than that,I'd stay in bronze and feed away while having my work areas walled and towered like fortresses.
When you look at the economic analysis and then consider Palmy's poor iron age army you can see why they need to do something that causes decisive pain to the enemy in the bronze age.
Now consider that Palmy has SEVERE trouble with a bad map and also is really hurt by tool rushes because it is really costly early in the game to replace dead 75 food vils.
Thus we see why I continue to insist that Palmy belongs with Greece and Carthage as one of the game's three worst civs.
I have almost never seen any one play a "GOOD" game w/Palmy and when they/I did we had a very good starting spot. ( I am not talking about trashing newbies who bronze in 19 minutes in their sim-city)
Palmy is a VERY poor civ. They are certainly unique and interesting, but they really STINK... neilkaz...