Alternate/More fitting UAs

After playing the game for a while, I can't help but think that some of the UAs while fun don't really seem to fit. I have some suggestions that might prove a change.

Rome: The glory of Rome
+1 food to the capital per trade route
Seems to fit the name better than the in game policy. Would lead to a ginormous Rome, which, again, seems fitting. Could also give it +1prod per trade route if too weak.

France: I am the State
(famous quote of Louis XIV, rather than Ancient Regime)
No increase in social policy cost by founding cities (does not apply do annexed cities).
The idea is to represent the court of Louis XIV and the highly centralised governments afterwards. By concentrating power so tightly, it is easier to enforce constitutional changes. Also encourages france to play culturaly and expansively, like Aztecs but the rewards grow with time.

Russia: Red Army
(rather than Siberian Riches)
All units have 120HP rather than 100, cities also get +20%HP (affects defensive buildings too)
No idea how this would play out, but having units that are damn hard to kill sounds like a lot of fun. Rather than more units, more men but units!

If you have any other suggestions, please post them here, but try and keep them reasonably balanced (and not offensive)

Oh, I can't possibly see how +20 hp per unit wouldn't be imbalanced.....oh wait.
No point in changing unique abilities that work fine. None of them are horribly broken or anything (minus Diplomatic Marriage, which just needs to cost more or something).

Looking at the math, France's would totally get out of hand. The liberty policy + monuments + ampitheater = +6 culture per city. Stack that with the capital likely producing 30+ culture from buildings, the palace and wonders, and you'd have France producing upwards of 60 culture per turn before even discovering Opera Houses.

When they got access to those and museums, the culture per city would jump to +15 per city before buffs. If they add the Sistine Chapel and broadcast towers, that's +23 PER city. By then a smart player or a runaway AI would be at 10+ cities and have maxed-out Piety plus built the Hermitage while also getting the follower belief to boost it. That's gotta be hundreds of culture per turn in just the capital and maybe 300 empire-wide by turn 250. If they pop a golden age and start allying CSes, it's going to soar to easily 400+ in the Industrial era. This doesn't even count culture from training artist specialists. Too much. Would totally break the game.

The current French bonus is fine as is. Russia's would be OP, especially if they had Faith Healers. I think it's self-explanatory why.

Only Rome's sounds intriguing, but the current one isn't broke, so why fix it? I find that bonus to be immensely helpful at times.

The Soviet army during WW2 was probably one of the most ill-prepared army to go to war in the history of warfare, relying on quantity rather than quality to fight their enemies - their casualties were absolutely staggering.

Think such UA would be more appropriate for Germany, not Russia.

How about this?

'Red Army - All units cost 30% less to build but have only 80HP'

An excellent idea for a DLC would be to "add 1 leader with new, balanced UA to each existing civ". Someone should recommend it. They would add a complete dimension to re-playability.

If you're adding new leaders with new UAs, you're already halfway to just having a new civ entirely if you just finished up with a new building/unit or unit/unit or whatever/improvement

BobDole said:

Oh, I can't possibly see how +20 hp per unit wouldn't be imbalanced.....oh wait.
No point in changing unique abilities that work fine. None of them are horribly broken or anything (minus Diplomatic Marriage, which just needs to cost more or something).

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Diplomatic Marriage should have a cost escalating effect (like how social policy or great person cost goes up each time). This would be good for game mechanics, and also a realistic flavor (every royal wedding needs to be bigger, grander, and more expensive than the previous one).

They should go by the same numbers that they use for happiness induced golden ages ie 500+5n for the first DM, 750+5n for the second, etc ... where n is the number of cities beside the capital. They also can tweak it a bit and use 25n !

Adjuvant said:

An excellent idea for a DLC would be to "add 1 leader with new, balanced UA to each existing civ". Someone should recommend it. They would add a complete dimension to re-playability.

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I really like the idea to add further differentiation among civs but i don't like the fact that the UA should be attached to a new civ leader for several different reasons:

-new leaders would require a lot of work for devs which makes introduction of 2nd UA unlikely;
-new leaders graphic doesn't add anything to gameplay
-civs with UU, UB and 2 UA are more differentiated than civ with UU, UB and a UA of your choice
-civilizations flavour in civ5 is better than civ4 where civs were differentiated mostly on leader traits.

Peacemongerer said:

Only Rome's sounds intriguing, but the current one isn't broke, so why fix it? I find that bonus to be immensely helpful at times.

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For a change. Kind of bored with many of the existing civs, adding completely new civs requires a lot of work, just changing some UAs might be fun.

Lord Olleus said:

For a change. Kind of bored with many of the existing civs, adding completely new civs requires a lot of work, just changing some UAs might be fun.

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This is already being done by the mod community, so not really something the devs need to work on.

Miravlix said:

This is already being done by the mod community, so not really something the devs need to work on.

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I never meant to suggest that the devs should, just wanted to know what ideas people might come up with.