The Finnish Civilization for G&K with custom Leader Music

Hi everyone! After a lot of work I have finally completed my first mod for Civilization V. Hope you like it.

The Finnish Civilization for Gods & Kings
with custom Leader Music



This mod adds in Gods & Kings my home country, Finland. Finland specializes early game in faith and culture from nature, and late game in defense and culture. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim is the leader.

I have managed to add in the mod custom leader music, so every game with Finland opens with pieces of Finlandia (Jean Sibelius, London Symphony Orchestra), and the music and custom ambience is also heard in the leader screen of Mannerheim. This could be only done by replacing an existing leader, this time Ramkhamhaeng, with Mannerheim, so Siam is not in the game when Finland is activated. When the mod is active, it also removes all the Finnish city names from Sweden, so there won’t be two Helsinkis in the game.

Here’s a description of the features of the civ with brief comments.


Leader: Mannerheim
Unique Ability: Stalwart North
Unimproved worked marsh tiles provide +1 Faith and forest tiles +1 Culture per turn. All melee, archer, gun and armored units gain +15% combat strength fighting within empire's borders.


The first part of the ability is meant to represent the ancient Finland, where nature was very important in the beliefs and the animistic religion of the people. The beliefs and mythology had a great impact on the Finnish culture and tradition. Ability can seem to be overpowered, but only worked marsh and forest tiles provide the cultural and faith bonuses, so in the early game, you need to decide whether you want to work the rich farm tiles to grow or the poor tiles to gain the culture or faith bonus.

The combat bonus is meant to represent the famous tough spirit of the Finnish people, and especially the Winter War, when small Finland managed to withstand a massive Soviet invasion over hundred days until the peace treaty was signed. So the +15% combat bonus is granted only in friendly territory, so this is mainly a defensive bonus. The bonus isn’t very much but I tried not to make this overpowered (with the cultural and faith bonus already in).


Unique Building: Sauna

The Sauna is an ancient-era building unique to Finland. It replaces Shrine and provides additional 2 Culture and 2 Happiness. It also provides bonus Faith from worked lake tiles. After researching Steam Power, the Faith bonus is replaced with Culture. Needs to be built near River or Lake.

I decided to make the Sauna as an early game religious building replacing the Shrine with extra happiness and culture, because of its religious meaning in the ancient culture, and because it’s an ancient custom. A sauna was believed to be a holy place because of its healing effects, and it was also kind of an “altar” to the fire and elves. The main faith bonus is replaced with culture after Steam Power, to represent the loss of its religious meaning in the modern times.


Unique Unit: Ski Troop

Cost: 350
Ranged Combat: 60
Combat: 45 (67,5 in Snow, Tundra and Forest)
Moves: 2 (doubled in Snow, Tundra, Hills and Forest)
Range: 1
Can move after attacking and ignores terrain cost

Finnish unique unit. The Ski Troop moves in Snow, Tundra, Hills and Forest extremely fast, and can withdraw into a new position after attacking. It gains +50% defensive bonus in Snow, Tundra and Forest, but outside these terrains, it is much weaker in defense than the Machine Gun which it replaces.

The only one Machine Gun replacement in the game. It is meant to represent modern Finland, and the Winter War, where the snow-suited soldiers set many ambushes for invading Soviets, and managed to crush a large part of their army. So this unit is made for attacking and withdrawing fast and is made as a replacement for the Machine Gun, so Finland can have normal Infantry units also alongside Ski Troops. It’s powerful in Snow, Tundra and Forest terrains, but weak outside (men in bright white suits on grassland are not very stealthy ). In Snow, Tundra and Forest it gains a defensive bonus due the camouflage suit. The bonuses may seem to be overpowered, but that's why I added the defensive penalty outside Ski Troop's main terrains. So this is a powerful late-game unit but largely restriced to these terrains.



What do you think about the features and balance?

The Finnish Civilization is now available in Steam Workshop. Because this mod has custom music and much graphical art, the file size is somewhat large, so it is uploaded also here in RapidShare, and will be in the download database here with a link. More screenshots are attached below.

Very creative, ! I just think it tops the "overpowered threshold" by a few inches.
Maybe you should reduce happiness bonus by 1 for the sauna and remove the archery line from the stalwart.

snipperrabbit!! said:

Very creative, ! I just think it tops the "overpowered threshold" by a few inches.
Maybe you should reduce happiness bonus by 1 for the sauna and remove the archery line from the stalwart.

Click to expand...

Thanks! These could sound reasonable changes. Originally I planned to give the sauna only +1 happiness bonus, and add replace the faith bonus with another 1 happiness after researching Steam Power, but I don't know how to add happiness to TechEnchancedYield, so I gave culture instead, and increased the happiness to 2. I may reduce it back to 1 when I post a new version.

Maybe I really should remove the archery line bonus, too, bacause there is already the Ski Troop there spicing up the end of Archery Line.

EDIT: The changes snipperrabbit!! proposed are now added in the version 2 and it is now available for download in the Steam Workshop.

I've got G&K, and clicked on Subscribe on this workshop page, but the mod doesn't download. Any suggestions? I've got the latest build of G&K and Steam client.

Ya it doesn't seem to be downloading for me either. And for the record I'm a Mac user

UB and UU is too OP - too much bonuses. And Hills, And Forests double moves + huge combat bonus? Too much. 2 happy + 2 culture very early in game for most cheap game building, in addition to faith? too much. Even only 2 happy is too much. Game Breaking, i'd say.
But very creative

jpinoniemi said:

I've got G&K, and clicked on Subscribe on this workshop page, but the mod doesn't download. Any suggestions? I've got the latest build of G&K and Steam client.

Click to expand...

That's a strange problem. While I tested the downloading of this mod, I got the same problem too. But restarting Steam helped for me. Hope you get it working!

Slvynn said:

UB and UU is too OP - too much bonuses. And Hills, And Forests double moves + huge combat bonus? Too much. 2 happy + 2 culture very early in game for most cheap game building, in addition to faith? too much. Even only 2 happy is too much. Game Breaking, i'd say.
But very creative

Click to expand...

I agree it's OP. There's the version 2 in, which decreases the sauna's happiness to +1, and removes the archer line from gaining combat bonus early game.

The Ski Troop - the Ranged combat stays the same everywere on the map, but it's much weaker in defense outside. For the movement - what about triple movement in hills and forests and double in snow and tundra, but not ignoring terrain costs anymore, so it would move everywhere else like others, but gain like three moves in hills and forests and four moves in snow and tundra.

What else would you propose to weaken these a bit without changing the main mechanics too much?

civcanada said:

Ya it doesn't seem to be downloading for me either. And for the record I'm a Mac user

Click to expand...

I'm using a Mac also. Restarting Steam hasn't helped either.

I could try downloading the files manually.

I have another general question on the items you subscribe to on the Steam Workshop - they just download in the background? Or are they supposed to show up in the Downloads section? Mine doesn't seem to do anything once I subscribe to something. I've seen many others with the same issue. I'm assuming it's a Mac Steam problem?

I don't know about Mac Steam - I'm a Windows user, but it should download the mod you have subscribed once you have launched the game. If you still cannot get it working, I suggest you to try the link on RapidShare and put the files there manually.

The combat bonus doesn't balance at all. Consider scaling the bonus by making it dependant on the number of cities the player controls or some aspect of play that you'd like to limit. For instance, the bonus could read, "+4% combat strength per unit for each city fewer than 6," making sure puppeted cities are counted. That bonus is way too much for an aggressor.

The combat bonus doesn't balance at all. Consider scaling the bonus by making it dependant on the number of cities the player controls or some aspect of play that you'd like to limit. For instance, the bonus could read, "+4% combat strength per unit for each city fewer than 6," making sure puppeted cities are counted. That bonus is way too much for an aggressor.

LordGold said:

The combat bonus doesn't balance at all. Consider scaling the bonus by making it dependant on the number of cities the player controls or some aspect of play that you'd like to limit. For instance, the bonus could read, "+4% combat strength per unit for each city fewer than 6," making sure puppeted cities are counted. That bonus is way too much for an aggressor.

Click to expand...

Sounds a great idea but I am not sure how to do it without doing lua, which I don't know how to do. Ethiopia's bonust against larger civs would work, but that can be used in aggression too.

The rapidshare link doesn't seem to be working for me

All Mac users - it seems that Aspyr does not support mods for Mac. It can however be perhaps done manually. Hope this thread will help you. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=399791

Is there an updated Rapidshare link for v.2?

Hi Hypereon, nice work on the civ !

Would you allow me to use some parts of it in my WWI mod ? (the diploscreen and maybe the infantry reskin)

Is this the same one as the steam workshop? If so, already downloaded . Also, can roads be built on the marsh for the faith bonus?

Thank you!

Of course you can use them, Gedemon. Just give me a credit.

@ArchyDarky: Yes, this is the very same one . I have no idea of the road thing. If it doesn't clear the marsh, the bonus will stay.