I'm a long time lurker, first time poster here, but hopefully the idea I'm about to present has merit without a high post count. And hopefully I'm in the right forum and not beating a dead horse!
The problem with removing the gold from coast and river tiles is that it severely gimps early game options. Because gold is so limited, you cannot effectively do anything other than make 2-3 units and a building before you're forced into making caravans. The net result is that early game warmongering is now so risky that it renders civs with early UUs somewhat impotent. Civs with warrior, spearman, horseman, or trireme replacement UUs suffer, while those with Medieval Age and up UUs can take full advantage of their UUs.
I don't believe the solution is to simply put back what was removed. If you are landlocked, coast and river gold still renders you dead in the water. It makes map placement far more important than it should be. What seems to be needed is a small bonus to gold available for only a very specific period of the game.
My thought is that it should just be attached to the Palace building. This makes access to the gold buff universal. The solution I suggest is to have the building provide GPT based on population up to a limited cap. At 1 pop, 1 GPT, etc. This could go up to 3 or even as high as 5 before it shuts off.
Pros:
-Allows signficantly more leeway for aggressive early expansion and early warmonger playstyles
-Does not carry over to non-capital cities, so it can't be abused by rapid expanders
-Is not map-dependent, so the playing field is fair
-Is limited so that it only addresses the earliest 40-50 turns of pain without breaking any of the new BNW mechanics
-Is not so large a bonus that Spain's UA and the early exploration gold bonuses from goodie huts and meeting CSs become useless
Your thoughts?
The problem with removing the gold from coast and river tiles is that it severely gimps early game options. Because gold is so limited, you cannot effectively do anything other than make 2-3 units and a building before you're forced into making caravans. The net result is that early game warmongering is now so risky that it renders civs with early UUs somewhat impotent. Civs with warrior, spearman, horseman, or trireme replacement UUs suffer, while those with Medieval Age and up UUs can take full advantage of their UUs.
I don't believe the solution is to simply put back what was removed. If you are landlocked, coast and river gold still renders you dead in the water. It makes map placement far more important than it should be. What seems to be needed is a small bonus to gold available for only a very specific period of the game.
My thought is that it should just be attached to the Palace building. This makes access to the gold buff universal. The solution I suggest is to have the building provide GPT based on population up to a limited cap. At 1 pop, 1 GPT, etc. This could go up to 3 or even as high as 5 before it shuts off.
Pros:
-Allows signficantly more leeway for aggressive early expansion and early warmonger playstyles
-Does not carry over to non-capital cities, so it can't be abused by rapid expanders
-Is not map-dependent, so the playing field is fair
-Is limited so that it only addresses the earliest 40-50 turns of pain without breaking any of the new BNW mechanics
-Is not so large a bonus that Spain's UA and the early exploration gold bonuses from goodie huts and meeting CSs become useless
Your thoughts?