Adjusted UA's for BNW- No New UU's

Furycrab said:

I won't comment too much on the other two, I don't think those civs really need help but that's just me...

But American bonus... No. Bringing "a" settler to have one city within close range of whoever you are invading is one thing. Using it to start tunneling into your opponent taking Citadels, negating the Great Wall... No... Way too many negative ramifications.

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That's why one should make the associated costs of doing so high, that way it does not become an end-all-be-all tactic but rather a strategic tool. I wrote earlier that it would be best to increase the cost by 1000% for buying enemy tiles. That way, yes you can tunnel into an enemy civ, negating the Great Wall, but the costs would have made the option much more prohibitive for just one city. For this example, you have just spent three thousand to grab a few border tiles as a launching area for assault. Does that sound in any way bad to you? That your opponent spent a healthy amount of money to give him an advantage in declaring war? That they spent three thousand on tiles rather than Artillery and Infantry? That is balanced because the associated costs of spending three thousand on tiles, rather than say units. By making the option prohibitively expensive, it becomes a non-spammable ability, as when you are finally in the position to spam it, you're basically rolling in enough gold to just roll over everyone. While giving the option opens up new avenues for strategic play. Is a thousand gold worth a Citadel? Depending on the situation, most likely no. Is a thousand gold worth a luxury/NW/strategic resource? That is an interesting question.

Also, your reasoning, that it negates certain aspects of a game (in this case Citadels and the Great Wall) as a form of abuse doesn't really hold up. For one, Greece and Austria in a situation that, quite literally mimics the above, that by throwing a lot of gold at a target the civ removes an aspect of another's ability. Second, so long as the ability isn't exploitable and is unspammable, there is nothing wrong with the idea, mechanic-wise.

Worlds_Crossing said:

Yeah. People when trying to pitch ideas always seem to forget that when adding things to a UA one should: a. consider the UU's and UB's, b. think of any exploits for such additions, c. consider any overlap with other UA's in playstyle.

Yes, the Aztecs have a rather weak UA in terms of scaling, but their amazing UU and wonderful-if-available UB more than make up for it.

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Yeah,I Agree and I'm happy because someone answered me

How about doing this for America:
Can buy Enemies Titles or
+10 or 5% Gold from Factories or 1+ Gold/Production for Luxury Resources,representing the industrialized products.
IDK, America is America, the only thing that the United States does is sell things,it is a better idea than a Mcdonalds UB requiring Cows

ehecatzin said:

I like the limitations you propose, so here go my suggestion:

•America
All land military units have +1 sight range. 50% discount when purchasing tiles. Can buy tiles belonging to another civ.

This would make America a very dangerous rival mid to late game, as they could push right into you territory and take all kind of resources, even worse if America uses some citadels. Of course it wouldnt be without diplomatic repercution with the former owner of the tiles.

It even ties nicely to their expansionistic history (which its UA is all about), and it would turn America into a very dangerous expansionistic power, rather than just the early game bonus it has right now.

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Doesn't that also imply to the British Empire aka England?

DaNuke said:

How about doing this for America:
Can buy Enemies Titles

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I want to buy the title "the Terrible" from Montezuma or "the Great" from Alexander, Catherine, or Sejong.

America doesn't need any buffs. Sure, the UA is relatively weak, but it has 2 powerful UUs to make up for it.

azzaman333 said:

America doesn't need any buffs. Sure, the UA is relatively weak, but it has 2 late UUs to make up for it.

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FTFY. The problem is generally that, while America's UU's are good, it needs that extra oomph get to a point where it can actually exploit its UU's as you could play the entire game and never reach the Minuteman, which is arguably one of the best gunpowder units in the game somewhere close to the Janissary in utility.

The B12 comes much too late, and as such, up till you reach the Renaissance and get gunpowder, all you get is extra sight and cheaper tiles, neither of which will help you any to get to the latter eras with which to leverage your UU's in a direct way. Other civs with late UU's generally have something to leverage in the early game, Furor Teutonicus for Germany giving cheaper and more units, The Sun Never Sets for England for rapid response to threats and attack, Barbary Corsairs for the Ottomans for more naval units, and the Sweden's GP bonus from Nobel Prize. America, for all rights and purposes apart from the sight bonus, have nothing to leverage at the early game.

Worlds_Crossing said:

FTFY. The problem is generally that, while America's UU's are good, it needs that extra oomph get to a point where it can actually exploit its UU's as you could play the entire game and never reach the Minuteman, which is arguably one of the best gunpowder units in the game somewhere close to the Janissary in utility.

The B12 comes much too late, and as such, up till you reach the Renaissance and get gunpowder, all you get is extra sight and cheaper tiles, neither of which will help you any to get to the latter eras with which to leverage your UU's in a direct way. Other civs with late UU's generally have something to leverage in the early game, Furor Teutonicus for Germany giving cheaper and more units, The Sun Never Sets for England for rapid response to threats and attack, Barbary Corsairs for the Ottomans for more naval units, and the Sweden's GP bonus from Nobel Prize. America, for all rights and purposes apart from the sight bonus, have nothing to leverage at the early game.

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Minuteman is midgame, not late. And both aspects of the UA are early game boosts. They're not a top level civ by any stretch, but they don't need "fixing".

@ Rajjah
I'd worry about your suggestion for Germany, as I might have unfortunate implications because of some of the things done by the Nazis to ancient German archaeological sites, like dig up bronze age sites, bury iron age weapons and tools, rebury the whole site and then 'excavate' it, to prove that the Germanic people were superior to their contemporaries.

I'd probably replace the current one with something else, but not that.

azzaman333 said:

Minuteman is midgame, not late. And both aspects of the UA are early game boosts. They're not a top level civ by any stretch, but they don't need "fixing".

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I never stated that the Minuteman is a lategame unit, rather that it comes relatively late (late Renaissance if I remember correctly).

Both aspects are early game boosts, but neither of which are interesting or capable of leveraging. With The Sun Never Sets, you can leverage the UA such that overseas invasions become feasible given time constraints, with Manifest Destiny, neither of the effects can be used to any tangible effects. How do you plan to leverage +1 sight or cheaper tiles? The simple answer is, you don't. The two are easily overlooked benefits that can be completely ignored. Hell, if someone plays Civ5 for the first time and someone chooses America for him, and then he plays, completely ignorant of America's UA, would he ever notice the difference and would he lose anything from not knowing what America's UA is? With England, you will notice that you're running circles around enemy ships. With China, you'll notice a larger number of GG's in comparison to your enemies and that you happen to kill things harder with nearby GG's. The point being that with America, you might as well be playing with no UA for its tangible effects to your playstyle. Given that it is an ability supposed to be unique to a civilization, that comes across as bland and unintelligent.

To sum it up, the problem with Manifest Destiny is that it doesn't really feel like a UA. It feels like two side benefits of better UA's tacked together into a single UA. Think about it, neither the +1 sight, nor the cheaper tiles actually feel like a unique UA, they feel like the visibility Scout promotion and the Krepost, without the associated costs or limitations. Is it useful? Sure, but it doesn't exactly feel like a 'Unique Ability' which I think is the crux of the problem with America's UA.

BrokenSky said:

@ Rajjah
I'd worry about your suggestion for Germany, as I might have unfortunate implications because of some of the things done by the Nazis to ancient German archaeological sites, like dig up bronze age sites, bury iron age weapons and tools, rebury the whole site and then 'excavate' it, to prove that the Germanic people were superior to their contemporaries.

I'd probably replace the current one with something else, but not that.

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If the current UA of Germany was proposed in a thread in some alternate universe where they had a different one it would be chastised for its unfortunate implications. Believe me, as someone who's grandfather came over from Germany, I wish originally thier UA would have been more reflective of German Ingenuity or philosophy or the arts but they decided to go with a barbarian/ war maintenance UA that is closely intertwined with one of thier two military units.(the other being a panzer, more unfortunate implications) This will not be changed for it would require a France level revamp and like I stated earlier the only thing we are getting if anything from old Civs are small changes.

So that was where my idea came from, I'm trying to figure out a way to reward the German player for using thier UA without giving them yet another war trope. To me that is what makes Germany and America the hardest civs to edit, Germany for its restrictive war focus and America for it's blandness as Worlds_crossing eloquently stated. Sure India and Japan need changes more but theirs are more easily altered because the focus of thier UA is clear and less rife with unfortunate implications as German history or Manifest destiny.

God of Kings said:

I want to buy the title "the Terrible" from Montezuma or "the Great" from Alexander, Catherine, or Sejong.

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Tiles* Lmao

azzaman333 said:

Minuteman is midgame, not late. And both aspects of the UA are early game boosts. They're not a top level civ by any stretch, but they don't need "fixing".

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It does need fixing. Anyone saying otherwise is clearly fooling himself.
It is by far the worst UA in the game, and it really isnt even close.

Dutch
The dutch get 2 after discovering optics.

America
Increase settler production by 50% and worker production by 25%
OR/And
America gains 1 free policy after choosing an ideology (or something with making switch ideologies easier).

Germany
+2 for each engineer they have, or maybe +1 for each specialist.

Askia
Something usefull that doesnt involve city states

Songhai UA it's fine,some extra gold from Barbarians is cool in early game,and Capturing some Cities in late game is very lucrative.

Fluxx said:

Dutch
The dutch get 2 after discovering optics.

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Hmm, interesting, though a very straightforward bonus. Might work, but might be done better.

America
Increase settler production by 50% and worker production by 25%
OR/And
America gains 1 free policy after choosing an ideology (or something with making switch ideologies easier).

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The first one is a wide bonus, but just gets you free , no? Since the main problem for expansion is happiness. I'm not sure the second one fits America quite well either.

Ideally, America would be a wide, fast expansion empire. (As we don't need another late game culture or war monster, do we?). If we put Space Victory as the goal for the Americans, I could see a monetary bonus for them. So, put something on that first idea of yours. Like 'yields for city' if there is a specialist present (wide, but requires a specialist). Or something that lets you buy stuff cheaper.

Germany
+2 for each engineer they have, or maybe +1 for each specialist.

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Again, this doesn't change the way you play at all. It just makes you use specialists which you should already... My original proposal in that direction was +1 for scientists and +1 for engineers letting you tech up the lower or higher half of the tech tree and not miss out on the other things.

Some World Congress related bonus would be possible as well, as no other civ has those. The problem is to not make that conflict with the preferred victory for Germany (conquest I presume).

Askia
Something usefull that doesnt involve city states

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Haha, why? Songhai is strange to me since its UB is a temple, requiring you to go for religion, but the bonus is totally unrelated... Not sure on a new UA though...

Fluxx said:

Dutch
The dutch get 2 after discovering optics.

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Perfectly fine, though I'd suggest a later technology. IIRC, at the point in which you gain optics, you would have gained two trade routes from techs. Giving two trade routes at optics might be too powerful, not to mention similar to Venice at that stage of the game.

Fluxx said:

America
Increase settler production by 50% and worker production by 25%
OR/And
America gains 1 free policy after choosing an ideology (or something with making switch ideologies easier).

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Personally, I despise ideas involving UA's involving Workers and Settlers. Any such UA's would have the unfortunate tendency to go for ICS, something which the devs have desperately tried to shy away from. Furthermore, giving 75% cheaper (assuming the bonus stacks with Collective Rule) Settlers is just asking for trouble.

The latter is bad, as it then gives America three late uniques and one mid unique. You get absolutely no bonuses until the Renaissance, and even then you have to rush to the Modern era just to get everything else.

Fluxx said:

Askia
Something usefull that doesnt involve city states

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Are you talking about Askia (River Warlord) or Genghis (Mongol Terror)? Songhai's UA only involves city states in the extra gold he gets for sacking them. Mongolia is the UA focused on taking CS's.

America - I think it's really fine. The UA is a decent boost to religion, actually. You can see more ruins, so more chance of faith runes, and you can get a city and buy a NW tile if needed. +1 vision is a really nice effect, just hard to tell what you really gain from it.

Germany - Also fine. They save a lot of money, and, if we can't change the UU, Germany needs reduced costs to actually take advantage of fast building pikemen.

India - Simply make the effect happen ONLY when a city gets to 3 pop. It would drastically reduce the penalty. Happiness is less of a problem with religion, something stated often, but they can choose other beliefs that can help them with their UA as is, so long as the immediate effect of settling a city is reduced. Putting off the unhappiness until 3 pop would make it a later UA without the huge downside upon settling.

Mongolia - +1% combat bonus per CS at war with target civ or CS. +2% combat bonus per civ at war with target civ or CS. Not too sure what numbers would be balanced here and it might need to scale with game size, but it fits the Mongols better.

Byzantium - Same as now, but add...each horse resource (note: not tile) you own adds 0.5 faith until the Renaissance. Fits with the history and importance of racing.

Japan needs something too, but I'd rather see them buffed though air combat changes.

The idea of America being able to make settlers without slowing down growth scares me. The AI Washington is bad enough without being able to get a huge capital while eating up every piece of land he sees, and I would consider it much stronger than several other UA's alone, let alone with the extra vision.

I have a sneaking suspicion that many of all the people making, often absurd, suggestions to boost the American civ.. well many of them likely just happen to live there.

mitsho said:

Again, this doesn't change the way you play at all. It just makes you use specialists which you should already... My original proposal in that direction was +1 for scientists and +1 for engineers letting you tech up the lower or higher half of the tech tree and not miss out on the other things.

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It does slightly alter how you play as Bismarck, because if you are war focused you often do not have the luxury of investing in specialists, however at least this gives you an option and benefit to multiple of strategies.
It can also be something like +1 for each production building (workshop, forge, windmill, factory).

Haha, why? Songhai is strange to me since its UB is a temple, requiring you to go for religion, but the bonus is totally unrelated... Not sure on a new UA though...

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Ya thats my main problem, it also doesn't really make sense from a history perspective.
Not only was Songhai one of the largest Islamic countries in our history, Askia was also an incredibly religiously devout leader, plus gifted in trade. Sure he had also the tendency to declare Jihad on everything that moves, but that's not all there was to it.
The UA feels a bit 'oh, we need another warmongerer', and extremely underwhelming.
If they do go the warmongerer path, something like:

Askia
Gain 25% bonus to attack on cities, which main religion is different than you founded. Gain 10% bonus to attack on units of a different civilization that founded a religion other than your own.

Worlds_Crossing said:

Personally, I despise ideas involving UA's involving Workers and Settlers. Any such UA's would have the unfortunate tendency to go for ICS, something which the devs have desperately tried to shy away from. Furthermore, giving 75% cheaper (assuming the bonus stacks with Collective Rule) Settlers is just asking for trouble.

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The devs made alot of changes to ICS so it isnt the dominant strategy to always use.
That doesnt mean some civs should have benefits that help the strategy.
Pacal is a good example, and in fact gets more bonuses to help it, since both science and happyness are the main bottlenecks when you go ICS.
Also it shouldnt stack additively with liberty, more like 1.5*1.5* total , which is how most mechanics in the game work.

Numbers do not matter much anyways, they can always be changed.

Are you talking about Askia (River Warlord) or Genghis (Mongol Terror)? Songhai's UA only involves city states in the extra gold he gets for sacking them. Mongolia is the UA focused on taking CS's.

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I meant askia, it was more a jest towards Askia AI's tendency to capture any CS in sight.

BBMorti said:

I have a sneaking suspicion that many of all the people making, often absurd, suggestions to boost the American civ.. well many of them likely just happen to live there.

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Everyone's a little bit nationalist. It's better than the people from the Balkan states claiming that their little nation that won a couple wars in the Medieval Era deserves to be in the game more than a legitimate global power (read: anyone who said Hungary deserved to get in over Indonesia).