Is France's UA not the worst ever?

Yes it's multiplicative - four times theming bonus.

Athenaeum said:

If you're actually taking your tourism seriously, you should have at least a couple/few hundred tourism per turn.

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Who says? What qualifies as "taking your tourism seriously"? You don't need much to be Exotic with everybody. Having just 10% influence over them would negate them having as much as 29% over you.

By the end of that video I linked, I had 49 tourism per turn. Carthage chose the "wrong" ideology and was instantly hit with 36 unhappiness. A couple turns later, one of her cities defected.

I digress. I'm sure France's UA doesn't contribute much, which was your question. I only interjected because you specified cultural victory and their UA contributes to non-cultural victories also.

Athenaeum said:

Yes it's multiplicative - four times theming bonus.

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Cheers

So that means

a 2 slot themed bonus [2 base, 4 Aesthetics/France, 8 Aesthetics + France]
a 3 slot themed bonus [3 base, 6 Aesthetics/France, 12 Aesthetics +France]
a 4 slot themed bonus [4 base, 8 Aesthetics/France, 16 Aesthetics +France]

Someone did the maths sometime back on this and calculated the amount of extra tourism you get from a themed Oxford University, Museum, Hermitage (all of which are guaranteed) then assuming you get a handful of themed Wonders.

I can't remember exactly what was concluded but it does give France a significant bonus towards Culture Victories - i.e it will let you win with less Tourism Wonders then other civs can.
Possibly this might get you a victory before another civ can launch their spaceship. It is also very useful in the Industrial/Modern era if you have enough tourism over other Civs you can have a lot more sway over Ideologies.

Redaxe said:

Does the UA effect double the value of the Aesthetics finisher?

I've never played France - I'm waiting for them to come up on the DCL

To me the Musketeers seem the most lacklustre part of the French Civ. They could at least give them the foreign lands bonus so the civ gets a bit of a domination edge to it.

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Yes it doubles up.

Musketeers suffer from melee units problems.

Redaxe said:

Does the UA effect double the value of the Aesthetics finisher?

I've never played France - I'm waiting for them to come up on the DCL

To me the Musketeers seem the most lacklustre part of the French Civ. They could at least give them the foreign lands bonus so the civ gets a bit of a domination edge to it.

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It does. a fully themed Louvre as France is +16

So if your capital has a themed Oxford University, Museum and Hermitage that equates to an extra 14 tourism.
Lets say you build the Sistine Chapel, the Louvre and the Sydney Opera House (all doable on Diety)
that is an extra 16 tourism so combined with the National Wonders you should be able to get a minimum of 30 extra tourism per turn.
I guess Hotels, Airports, National Visitors Centre don't add to this as the wiki says they just increase tourism output of Great Works and not the theming bonus.

However that still leaves Internet and other Ideology bonuses. So if you have Internet and Freedoms Broadcast Towers with a +33% bonus your Themed tourism becomes an extra 80 per turn?
And that's not counting modifiers such as Open Borders, Diplomats and Trade Routes. So essentially with those 3 we have a 120% bonus on that so we have an extra 176 tourism per turn when we reach Internet and assuming full Aesthetics. Also assuming my numbers are right
176 extra tourism per turn is certainly significant towards achieving a culture victory.

What is also being recommended is to grow paris like a fat cow, and then just before the internet, replace all the farms with chateaus.

Redaxe said:

So if your capital has a themed Oxford University, Museum and Hermitage that equates to an extra 14 tourism.
Lets say you build the Sistine Chapel, the Louvre and the Sydney Opera House (all doable on Diety)
that is an extra 16 tourism so combined with the National Wonders you should be able to get a minimum of 30 extra tourism per turn.
I guess Hotels, Airports, National Visitors Centre don't add to this as the wiki says they just increase tourism output of Great Works and not the theming bonus.

However that still leaves Internet and other Ideology bonuses. So if you have Internet and Freedoms Broadcast Towers with a +33% bonus your Themed tourism becomes an extra 80 per turn?
And that's not counting modifiers such as Open Borders, Diplomats and Trade Routes. So essentially with those 3 we have a 120% bonus on that so we have an extra 176 tourism per turn when we reach Internet and assuming full Aesthetics. Also assuming my numbers are right
176 extra tourism per turn is certainly significant towards achieving a culture victory.

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I don't know how you conclude that nabbing all those wonders is doable on Deity. Maybe you guys are better than me.

On Deity, I find it nearly impossible to get more than a couple wonders, sometimes the only ones I get are the ones I build with faith-purchased engineers.

The tourism wonders seem to go pretty quickly on Deity too. Assuming you get 2 tourism wonders (which I find to be a reasonable expectation), you're getting a doubled theming bonus in 3 buildings - those 2 wonders and a museum. And what's worse is that UA applies to the capital only and not other cities.

Athenaeum said:

I don't know how you conclude that nabbing all those wonders is doable on Deity. Maybe you guys are better than me.

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In my experience, the Sistine Chapel and the Louvre are pretty reliable builds on Deity because the AI doesn't really like Acoustics and Archaeology. SOH is almost always obtainable unless you really delay it.

Redaxe said:

So if your capital has a themed Oxford University, Museum and Hermitage that equates to an extra 14 tourism.
Lets say you build the Sistine Chapel, the Louvre and the Sydney Opera House (all doable on Diety)

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While all these wonders (and more) are fairly doable on diety, I find it hard to think that all of them could be themed, unless you conquer some cities with great works.
From what I know the Great Artist from Aesthetics isn't free (it increases the cost for natural generated great artists). I don't know if the Louvre gives a truly free Great Artist, but I doubt it. So with Museum, Hermitage, Louvre, and Sistine Chapel you need a total of 7 Great artists + 4 artifacts to fill them. The 6th and 6th Great Artist will take forever.

Also if you are going for a Cultural Victory, generating early musicians is not good, so theming Sydney Opera House is not advisable.

Athenaeum said:

You're forgetting +1 movement for mounted, which is a big deal considering what it does to keshiks.

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Which is exactly nothing. Keshiks in the game are archer units, not mounted units.

Maximo the Xth said:

Which is exactly nothing. Keshiks in the game are archer units, not mounted units.

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and you'd be wrong. They have 5 movement points, Horsemen and Camel Archers have 4

Athenaeum said:

You're forgetting +1 movement for mounted, which is a big deal considering what it does to keshiks.

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Mongolia's UA actually doesn't affect Keshiks. It does, however, let your other mounted units keep up with Khans and Keshiks.

Or I may be wrong because Keshiks have 5 movement regardless and not because of the UA?

stormtrooper412 said:

Or I may be wrong because Keshiks have 5 movement regardless and not because of the UA?

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Pretty much it. They're really good when you get them from city-states because they still maintain their 5 movement. Now imagine being in a golden age as Persia.

Or even better, have a CKN with Logistics as Persia in a Golden Age

Bad Wolf said:

Not counting Venice, worst UA is probably Iroqouis. It might be somewhat decent if it actually did what it says it does (ie: forests function as roads), but it doesn't really do that - it just makes forests connect cities without roads, which is far less good and basically requires you to build roads anyway. (Roads are for more than just city connections, troop movement is vital - all the more so if you're surrounded by forests!)

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I will argue for Iroquois' case. Yeah, the movement is a bit buggy, but all you need to do is put roads on places where forests end. It's actually a decent UA with regards to workers. With most civs, workers will have a hard time moving around forested areas. Iroquois workers get to move to their designated areas faster and can work on the same turn. The fact that you don't always need to build roads except on areas where you really need them is also a big plus, as it means even less work for your workers. The end result, you get to focus on improving your territory without losing a lot of gold or time.

Aenthin said:

I will argue for Iroquois' case. Yeah, the movement is a bit buggy, but all you need to do is put roads on places where forests end. It's actually a decent UA with regards to workers. With most civs, workers will have a hard time moving around forested areas. Iroquois workers get to move to their designated areas faster and can work on the same turn. The fact that you don't always need to build roads except on areas where you really need them is also a big plus, as it means even less work for your workers. The end result, you get to focus on improving your territory without losing a lot of gold or time.

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That particular bit is really unintuitive, oops there's a clear patch of land here, build one road tile and it will magically work as a natural spiritual highway or something.

It did work well in the DCL but that was because Acken manually added trees around the starting location after the map has been generated

I really disagree with comparing UA alone. Yes if you compare UAs alone probably Mongolia has the worst one. I havent really tested the combat bonus against City States, but if we trust the wording:
30% combat bonus when attacking CS units, that is not bad comes handy when you declare war on a guy that has a lot of cs allies around you.
or attacking a City-State itself , but not defending from a CS attack. This is basically a downside. Usually you attack a CS for XP farm, but with Mongolia you bring the city HP down to 0 30% faster, so you can farm for XP with 30% less units. Since the combat bonus does not apply for defense, your units are still as vulnerable as any other civs. On the other hand the Khan healing bonus may synergise a little better with XP farming.
All mounted units have +1 Movement, this is actually pretty good compared to the other part, even though Chariot Archers, and Keshiks are not mounted so they do not benefit from it. The advantage is that they are also "immune" to spearmen/pikemen/lancer bonus, but another disadvantage is that the stable does not boost production for them (even though I read somewhere, that unlike the Camel Archers, Keshiks to get the production boost from stables but i haven't tested it yet). All in all this part of the UA makes horsemen as fast as keshiks, so they can keep up with them. But not a big deal since you will use horsemen just for capture.

Now to get back on topic. Maybe the UA for France is a little disappointing. It is certainly not the worst. But it isn't really fair to judge the civ just because of the UA. The chateau will give you a decent amount of culture + some gold. Having one gold does not seem like much, but the mere fact that it has gold, means that it gets the Golden Age bonus, so it will produce +1 gold. And really once you hit the modern era, the Chateau will be producing tourism as well.

The UU is also decent, it helps if you are attacked, and it helps if you are attacking, making it harder to kill. Extra strength is always good.

So all in all France is not so bad. The problem with France is that is oriented for a single victory condition, which for many it is already the hardest victory condition. But you are not forced to use the UA, you can just as well win a science victory same as you can do with any other civ that doesn't have a science bonus. You can do a XB or artillery sweep just as well.

Theming bonuses give Both culture and tourism

looking at great works
Great Works 2 culture, 2 Tourism (4 w Hotels+Airports)
Theming 1/great work...2 with Aesthetics

So France gets a 33-50% boost in culture from Great Works in Paris (+1/3 or +2/4)
it also gets a 33% boost in Tourism (useful even in a non tourism game)
1/3 or 2/6

So France makes 6/Great work become 8 (assuming you took aesthetics)