So, I fired up a Pangea, Small, Standard, Emperor game as France for old time's sake to soak in the ol' glory days. Nothing too frustrating: I can beat Immortal, and on rare occasion can beat Deity if I'm focused and have a day or two just to play games and not work or whatever. Just having fun with them one last time before I forget, as BNW is now coming up within almost a month (~5 weeks).
I realized how much I'm going to miss this version of France right from turn 1.
First off, +2 culture per city is a superb bonus right out of the gates: you pick up the first couple of SPs at a very fast pace, comparable only to popping a culture goody hut or killing a quick two or three barbs as Monty. Really, France's UA is one of the only UA's that is guaranteed to bring a nice bonus right from turn 1. When BNW comes out, the new UA 'City of Light' that affects Great Work tourism rates in the capital will probably be nice, but tourism seems like it only really comes into play in the mid-game and later, and losing that early +2 culture per city is likely going to be a bit of a nerf to France despite whatever 'City of Light' adds.
Secondly, the Foreign Legion is a unit that can crush enemies when you go on the offensive. It's one of those few gunpowder units that I bother with, as the Foreign Lands bonus gives them the combat strength to hold up against numbers of enemies that the standard GWI really can't. An army of ten Foreign Legions with a few arty and a couple of GWFighters and GWBombers, and it's pretty easy to steam-roll any AI that hasn't gotten to standard infantry and standard bombers and fighters. BNW allowing anyone to get the Foreign Legion is a fun idea, but only getting 6 of them isn't going to cut it. The one up-side to the new way they'll become available is that it sounds like you get all 6 simultaneously, which would be very handy, allowing you to reinforce your army very abruptly and easily. But I'm not sure this is confirmed beyond a doubt yet, that you get all of them at once.
Third, I rather liked that the culture bonus to the current France was truly free: going back to my first point, it's nice to get a bonus right on turn 1. The Chateau UI might yield good culture once you can build it in some numbers, but that's going to be a ways into the game, I imagine. I don't think the Chateau has been fully explained anywhere, yet, so I don't want to jump the gun, but it seems like a bit of a let-down after the way France gets culture now, where it gets it for free, per city, rather than by having to tech up to a certain point and send a bunch of workers out to improve tiles.
Musketeers will still be around though, so that helps.
Ultimately, I'm expecting BNW to be pretty fun, and to fix some annoying issues that have been clinging on since vanilla. After all, doing away with gold-yield along rivers and letting you get gold thru trade-routes fixes the old, old, all-the-way-back-to-vanilla issue of getting a start that doesn't have a single river tile for 20 tiles in any direction of your initial settler. Stuff like that will be great. But as a big France fan (my profile's avatar probably gives that away), I have to say I'm really hoping the overhaul doesn't end up slightly nerfing them.
I realized how much I'm going to miss this version of France right from turn 1.
First off, +2 culture per city is a superb bonus right out of the gates: you pick up the first couple of SPs at a very fast pace, comparable only to popping a culture goody hut or killing a quick two or three barbs as Monty. Really, France's UA is one of the only UA's that is guaranteed to bring a nice bonus right from turn 1. When BNW comes out, the new UA 'City of Light' that affects Great Work tourism rates in the capital will probably be nice, but tourism seems like it only really comes into play in the mid-game and later, and losing that early +2 culture per city is likely going to be a bit of a nerf to France despite whatever 'City of Light' adds.
Secondly, the Foreign Legion is a unit that can crush enemies when you go on the offensive. It's one of those few gunpowder units that I bother with, as the Foreign Lands bonus gives them the combat strength to hold up against numbers of enemies that the standard GWI really can't. An army of ten Foreign Legions with a few arty and a couple of GWFighters and GWBombers, and it's pretty easy to steam-roll any AI that hasn't gotten to standard infantry and standard bombers and fighters. BNW allowing anyone to get the Foreign Legion is a fun idea, but only getting 6 of them isn't going to cut it. The one up-side to the new way they'll become available is that it sounds like you get all 6 simultaneously, which would be very handy, allowing you to reinforce your army very abruptly and easily. But I'm not sure this is confirmed beyond a doubt yet, that you get all of them at once.
Third, I rather liked that the culture bonus to the current France was truly free: going back to my first point, it's nice to get a bonus right on turn 1. The Chateau UI might yield good culture once you can build it in some numbers, but that's going to be a ways into the game, I imagine. I don't think the Chateau has been fully explained anywhere, yet, so I don't want to jump the gun, but it seems like a bit of a let-down after the way France gets culture now, where it gets it for free, per city, rather than by having to tech up to a certain point and send a bunch of workers out to improve tiles.
Musketeers will still be around though, so that helps.
Ultimately, I'm expecting BNW to be pretty fun, and to fix some annoying issues that have been clinging on since vanilla. After all, doing away with gold-yield along rivers and letting you get gold thru trade-routes fixes the old, old, all-the-way-back-to-vanilla issue of getting a start that doesn't have a single river tile for 20 tiles in any direction of your initial settler. Stuff like that will be great. But as a big France fan (my profile's avatar probably gives that away), I have to say I'm really hoping the overhaul doesn't end up slightly nerfing them.
, the Chateux better be the best UI in the game.
