Discuss Civ Bonuses

[Pangur Bán]

I'm just opening this thread to discuss the merits and demerits of the default civ attributes. I happen to strong disagree with many of them, like I don't think the Ottomans should be scientific and I think the Spanish should definitely be militaristic. Let's hear everyone's opinion about all the civs...

 

[Anti-EUA]

Well, I think china and japan should be changed. every single try of industrialization in china have not worked. otoh they take religion very seriously. japan had the meiji era which gave them a big boost in economy with big factories coming.
i think spain is good that way.
and i think america should have commerce as trait.
well lots of them seem wrong to me too, but i can't remember the others!

 

[Turner]

The US didn't get commercial until after WWII, IMO. Before WWII, it was most a rural country. Sure, there were a lot of people in the cities, but it really exploded after WWII.

Expansionist and Industrious fit in pretty well, I think. Think of the drive across the frontier, to the west coast. Well. . .that's how I see it, at least.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I think it's very strange that Persia and the Ottomans are Scientific and Industrious. Neither was a major scientific contributor, and while both (I'm thinking of Persia as the Achaemenid Empire here) left behind a variety of palaces and monuments, they're hardly outstanding.

China, IMHO, would be a much better candidate for Scientific and Industrious. So would one of the Western civs, probably Germany or America. And Rome surely ought to be Industrious rather than Commercial.

I could go on, but these are the chief oddities in my mind.

 

[swiftsure]

i notice that in the editor you can tick the civ attributes for each civ i've often thought that most civs could do with a third attribute(if that would work) for instance, US commercial and rome industrious.

how this would affect game balance i do not know.

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by swiftsure
i notice that in the editor you can tick the civ attributes for each civ i've often thought that most civs could do with a third attribute(if that would work) for instance, US commercial and rome industrious.

how this would affect game balance i do not know.

In fact, I made my mod so that each civ has 3 attributes. There is more combinations because of that, and overall it allows, in my mind, a better representation of civs. Though, once or twice, I put a certain combination on a certain civ juste because "it had to go somehwere".

At least, here is how I made the distribution :

Rome : M, I, E
Egypt : I, S, R
Greece : S, R, C
Babylon : M, I, S
Germany : M, S, C
Russia : M, S, E
China : I, E, S
America : I, E, C
Japan : M, I, R
France : I, S, C
India : I, R, C
Persia : M, R, C
Aztecs : M, S, R
Zululand : M, E, R
Iroquois : I, E, R
England : E, S, C
Mongols : M, E, C
Spain : E, R, C
Arabia : E, S, R
Carthage : M, I, C

 

[Pangur Bán]

Carthage would not be militaristic. Its citizen didn't fight, they used mercenaries.

 

[Akka]

I know, but as I said there is some combinations I had to put where I could, even if there is a slight difference between them and the civ. It's one of them
At least, we can say that the use of veteran mercenaries and the efficient leadership of them can be represented by the militaristic trait ^^

 

[Charlie Martel]

Zululand should be commercial and scientific!

 

[Quandary]

I think part of the problem is the limited number of attribute types, and what adding ones, plus some research tweaks, could do to game balance.

Some nations could or should be labeled "Agricultural" (bonus to food production), or "Artistic" (happy face bonus), Inventive (rather than scientific) would have a minor research rate reduction instead of lower science building costs, "hunter" (more food from forest and game tiles).

For further example, China would get my "agricultural" attribute, Rome (or more properly France and Italy) would get "artistic", the U.S. would be "inventive", Iroquois and (maybe) Zulu would get the "hunter" one.

The game is good, but they did leave out a lot possible individual nation attributes.

Russia too. I can't think of a term right off hand, but I can see the Russians getting a bonus on tundra, Persia and Egypt getting one on desert, etc, etc, etc.

I'm sure other posters here could add dozens more like those above.

 

[America444]

i think rome and greece both should be either millitaristic and scientific or millitaristic and religous or in a mod game all three millitaristic, religous, and scientific

 

[Anti-EUA]

Quandary these traits sounds great! I think that the traits should be better distributed too. America is the only with I and E, Germany M and S, while there's Iroquois, Arabs and Celts with R and E, Scandinavia, Mongolia and Zulus with M and E. Sure it represents the reality better but there's no choice. I like M and I the best, but those chinese riders seem useless to me! Would like to have a M and I civ with other UU.

 

[YNCS]

Originally posted by Turner_727
The US didn't get commercial until after WWII, IMO. Before WWII, it was most a rural country. Sure, there were a lot of people in the cities, but it really exploded after WWII.

Expansionist and Industrious fit in pretty well, I think. Think of the drive across the frontier, to the west coast. Well. . .that's how I see it, at least.

The U.S. became commercial before the Civil War. In 1860, the second largest merchant marine in the world was American. The U.S. exported more cotton, wheat and coal than any other country.

Originally posted by The Last Conformist
I think it's very strange that Persia and the Ottomans are Scientific and Industrious. Neither was a major scientific contributor....

In Medieval Times, the Persians were very scientific. Algebra (originally a Persian word) was invented by the Persians, who also established the basis for chemistry. The reason why many stars have Arabic names is that the Arabized Persians, building on the work of the Helenized Egyptians, were the only folks doing astronomy during that time.

While the case for the Ottomans is not as strong, the Persians were THE scientists between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

 

[farting bob]

@ anti-eua- i agre that having 3 civs wth all the same traits is bad. casue then if one doesnt have a great UU, then there would be no real advantge to picking them over one with the same atribute.
and having 3 each would mean that there would be no need to 2 civs to have exactly the same stats.

 

[Anti-EUA]

About the lacking of civs with some traits: I tried to resolve this problem, by adding civs to game and giving them traits used by only one other civ. I put Portugal as Commercial and expansionist and stuff, not all of them are historically right (songhai are scientific and expansionist!) but at least now i got 2 or almost 2 civs by trait combination!

 

[hbdragon88]

otoh they take religion very seriously.

Maybe before, but they no longer anymore. Very early (can't put a date) they were into Buddhism. But Confusicism was much more prevailant. And China's official religion - Atheism!

 

[Anti-EUA]

hbdragon, i know now they are not religious as were, but thinking historically between industrious and religious i would still pick religious. but thinking better scientific sounds even better to me.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Originally posted by YNCS

In Medieval Times, the Persians were very scientific. Algebra (originally a Persian word) was invented by the Persians, who also established the basis for chemistry. The reason why many stars have Arabic names is that the Arabized Persians, building on the work of the Helenized Egyptians, were the only folks doing astronomy during that time.

While the case for the Ottomans is not as strong, the Persians were THE scientists between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

"Algebra" is from the Arabic al-jabr, and both the Arabs and the Chinese surely beat the Persians as Medieval scientists. Tho' grantedly it may be hard to tell if a writer writing in Arabic in Persia is Arab or Persian; refering to them as Medieval Islamic is safer.

And in-game, the Persians certainly seem to represent the pre-Islamic Persians of the Achaeminid Empire (and perhaps also those of the Arsacids and Sassanians), rather than Medieval Persia.

 

[hbdragon88]

I think what Firaxis based that off was the construction of the Great Wall and all the worker power that was used, which is why China is Industrious.