If you could change leaders/civs/techs for historical realism

What would you do?

Note: You can't add new base buildings or new base units.
You can't add new civilizations. You can't add new traits or change what traits do.

You can only:
-Change what traits someone has.
-Change what the leader favors (growth, espionage, culture, religion, production, military, science, gold)
-Change the starting techs
-Change the UU/UB.
-Change the AI's behaviour.
-Move the tech order around or change when something is make available/obsolete.
-Change civics

Also, it doesn't matter if you overuse traits.
I think the one trait combo rule is why we have some leaders with really questionable traits.

Take your time, put some thought into it.
Personally, my changes:

Starting Technologies:
Egyptian Empire - Agriculture, Mysticism

Leader Traits:
Gilgamesh: Industrious/Spiritual
Mao: Philosophical/Organized
Saladin: Spiritual/Charismatic
Tokugawa: Aggressive/Charismatic
Washington: Charismatic/Organized

Flavor changes:
Lincoln: Replace science with production
Mao: Replace growth with espionage
Napoleon: Replace gold with science, maybe? Gold doesn't seem right for Napoleon.
Stalin: Add espionage.

Unique Unit changes:
Arabia: Ansar, replaces the knight, starts with drill 1.
French: Give the Musketeer a city defense bonus instead of a speed bonus. Either that or give them pinch.
Germany: Give the Panzer a movement boost, maybe in place of its current bonus.
Greek: Make the phalanx a 5 strength spearman, also rename them to Hoplites.
Persia: Make the Immortal an axeman with a defense vs mounted units boost.

Unique Building changes:
Celts: Have the dun give both Guerilla 1 and Guerilla 2, also make it a bit cheaper.
France: Chateau, replaces castle, +25% espionage boost is replaced with a +25% cultural boost, although that might be unbalancing.
Japan: Decrease the cost of the Shale Plant.

Civics:
I'd give Serfdom a hammer bonus to farms.

Those are my ideas, if you're curious about any of them feel free to ask.

My ideas:

I always thought that awarding a free tech for discovering liberalism was weird; how does a political philosophy help one understand astronomy or physics? This bonus should go to scientific method instead, partly in order to counterbalance the obsolescence of monasteries and the Great Library.

Other than that, I completely agree that Egypt should start with mysticism; both leaders are spiritual and they can't found an early religion? Though it might make their religious economy strategy a bit overpowered. But I love Egypt, so I wouldn't mind.

The rathaus should not be a Holy Roman UU. If anything it should be a German UU since they were all built in the 19th century. I also dislike the shale plant, since its one of the few UBs that comes from a completely different era as the UU, and its usefulness is limited. Replace it with a dojo.

Cannons should appear way earlier, with gunpowder (glad Rhye's mod fixed this), longbowmen should appear with guilds, and Hinduism/Buddhism should appear later, after priesthood; or at the very least make Buddhism come after Hinduism.

I agree that something should be done to make serfdom more appealing, like a hammer or commerce bonus to farms. And environmentalism should have high upkeep, though this would make it even more unappealing. Mercantilism should get rid of the free great person and replace it with something like a gold bonus to coastal cities.

As for wonders, the Eiffel Tower wasn't originally a radio tower. It should be made available with steel and the broadcast towers should be replaced with its Civ II effect (other nations are friendlier - it was in the World's Fair, after all). And the Pyramids make zero sense - can't it just make temples more effective or something?

And this is just a minor nitpick, but Coco Chanel should not be a great merchant. Replace her with Sid Meier.

And this is just a minor nitpick, but Coco Chanel should not be a great merchant. Replace her with Sid Meier.

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Hey, I won a Cultural victory once by using Coco Chanel to bulb Haute Couture.

Just to start, I would take all the legendary/quasi legendary leaders of the game. People like Ragnar or Brennus, you know.....

Fred's personality needs some serious reworking.

I would change the Levee, and therefore the Dike to require Engineering rather than Replacable Parts. I would also make every leader prioritise Code of Laws much more, regardless of whether they like Religions, Wonders, Caste System or have a UU from the tech. Finally, I too would move the Free Technology from Liberalism to Scientific Method, and also make Sci. Meth give a 10% bonus to beaker production.

Fred's personality needs some serious reworking.

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Exactly. He should be a warmonger who pays some attention to culture and techs. We currently have too few warmonger techers - most warmongers are quite stringent with tech trading.

Agree with Alexander being game-wise more Imp/Cre (although with all these great people of the Hellenic period, for which Alex is responsible, Philosophical isn't a bad pick also. And Aggressive is natural for a conqueror).

He also should prioritize culture, not growth, and be more willing to trade techs. Victoria should be more open to tech trade too - all hail free market.

Get rid of stock exchanges as Englands UB. There is only 1 stock exchange in Britain and it is not a bank. Replace it with a shipyard (drydock thats available earlier and cheaper) or mill (a factory available with steampower that also gives a small gold bonus).

Change the UU to a musketman. Redcoats are primarilly associated with 18th-19th century wars fought with muskets as the standard infantry weapon.

Add Scottish and Welsh cities to the list and change the civ to Britain, instead of England.

I agree with everything that's been posted so far, though I would probably remove Protective from the game (it's pointless), and change Saladin back to Spiritual/Philosophical. I would probably remove Great Spies, as well, though I acknowledge they can be useful.

Change the UU to a musketman. Redcoats are primarilly associated with 18th-19th century wars fought with muskets as the standard infantry weapon.

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The Civ Musketman is more 16-17th century musket.

Planoneck said:

My ideas:

I always thought that awarding a free tech for discovering liberalism was weird; how does a political philosophy help one understand astronomy or physics? This bonus should go to scientific method instead, partly in order to counterbalance the obsolescence of monasteries and the Great Library.

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I disagree with this -- everybody says this, but I think the free tech makes plenty of sense. All the great British/French/American 17th-/18th-century scientists, philosophers, etc., were inspired by, enabled by, and contributed to classical liberalism (Locke [politics/government], Newton [physics/math/theology/history], J.S. Mill [economics/politics/philosophy], Rousseau, Adam Smith [an economist and "moral philosopher"], etc -- maybe even Napoleon). If you want to stick to the physical sciences, none of those guys were straight-up "scientists".

Besides, most people use it to go for Nationalism, right? And that makes perfect sense.

So I'd say that the discovery "liberalism" is supposed to represent the current of creative thought that made the 17th and 18th centuries such an intellectual golden age in Europe and America. The first person to discover liberalism is like 17th-/18th-century Britain.

I believe he's confusing the modern liberal-conservative political ideologies with liberalism's historical/philosphical meaning. It's easy to do, yet the terms in modern politics make little to no sense historically or philosophically. In modern usage conservatism seems to mean either a strong leaning or preference toward theocracy, nationalism, or capital (which often have parodoxical interests), while liberalism seems to imply a strong preference for egalitarianism, and common interests. Neither of these jive with the historical definition. Conservatism being a reliance on traditions and resistance to change, while liberalism means a preference of individual rights, and legal equality.

That's really what the game is getting at though, the birth of Western Thought, or Western Culture, the rejection of Birth Rights, and Mysticism, with the rational that the State was a servant of people (and not vice versa), and that all citizens had an equal right to use the market to gain wealth, plus a strong affinity toward individualism, individual rights, habeus corpus, these are essential to the modern concept of Western Society. A culture which now dominates the globe, and has been absorbed and incorporated into every 1st world nation on the planet. Anyway in such a context as you point out liberalism lead to an explosion of modern concepts, Capitalism, the Scientific Method, the modern Republic all owe their existance to 17th century liberalism.