Nerfed, buffed, and meh (civilizations)

[The_CatSnack]

I also wonder what the first balance patch will bring.. let's face it there is always one that's released shortly after any game or expansion comes out..

 

[PhilBowles]

I didn't see a thread on this already so I thought I'd start one. what civs from vanilla, gods and kings, and dlc were indirectly nerfed or buffed by the new mechanics.

buffed:
England: fast mobile navies are really important to secure sea trade routes. extra spy can be more effectively used as a diplomat unit, which is a nice edge to getting resolutions passed.

Polynesia: Moai are really big sources of culture and tourism with hotels.

America: visibility bonus helps monitor caravans against attack with fewer units, less early gold and culture has made cheap tile buying much more useful.

Byzantium: piety moved to.ancient era gives Theodora a chance to get a religion fast.

Maya: take piety to enjoy half priced pyramids in the ancient era.

Siam: My next game will test this, but given that both culture and faith are now more important than ever (and as already mentioned building base culture output is generally low), I expect this to be an indirect buff.

Persia: Although happiness buildings took a hit, in general a buff. Great Artists now have their own counter and can be produced quickly and without compromising Great Scientist production, which also compensates somewhat for the fact that you can't start generating them as early. Bronze Working is better generally than it was, as is the tech path it opens up.

* Germany took a severe hit. The Zulu UU is a pike UU, the Zulu UA has an XP bonus, and the Zulu UB synergizes well with the UU and UA and provides ridiculous bonuses to melee. Unless you really like Panzers, Germany now has a much better clone of itself, as someone already said above.

Bigger problem yet: Convert the Heathen. Instant conversion of any and all barbarian units next to a missionary. No need to take any camps, 100% probability, even happens as soon as the barbarian moves so it can't even attack the missionary before it turns. You can even play a low-happiness game where barbarians spawn as rebels, without camps, and steal them that way. Never mind the Germans, it comes close to making the Zulu underpowered.

* This might have been the case before and I just had forgotten, but now Marble only boosts ancient/classical wonder production. If this is indeed a change, than Egypt got a slight buff.

It was the case before. I'd say Egypt got a buff, for a different reason. Cultural victory without Wonders will now be very hard, and most buildings with theming bonuses are Wonders. So Egypt can spam tourism very effectively.

Carthage loses auto- for sea resources, which can hurt early performance. It, however, is a trading powerhouse, and one important ramification is that they can beeline IW to get the Colossus without suffering as much from the lack of sea infrastructure.

Harbors are now very, very good, and not mainly for the trade. Most of the money you'll get from harbors will be from city connections over sea; for me this now seems to be a bigger moneymaker than trade routes.

 

[Comptonius]

Germany took a severe hit. The Zulu UU is a pike UU, the Zulu UA has an XP bonus, and the Zulu UB synergizes well with the UU and UA and provides ridiculous bonuses to melee. Unless you really like Panzers, Germany now has a much better clone of itself, as someone already said above.

It's true that Zulu win out over Germany on the maintenance and Impi/promotions. But it seems like the ability to take over barbarian units is way more useful with the expansion. Barb camps are definitely spawning more often, and more importantly, they are spawning units whose tech scales with civs in the game, plus those that require strategic resources (swordsmen, horsemen, etc). I think this will make Furor Teutonicus way more useful over the course of the game if you can keep snagging good units, more often, from camps.

The other thing folks should remember is that the Zulu maintenance discount applies only to melee units, whereas Germany's applies to all land units, not just melee troops.

 

[Calouste]

India is buffed because shipping food via trade routes makes it easier to grow cities larger, so you get more out of their UA.

 

[Muskie]

The Arabs, who were already one of the strongest IMHO, got a huge buff. Replacing 2 gold/city connection with 50% longer caravans is a much larger gold pay off. Plus the religious spread bonus is just even more icing on the cake.

Arabs have always been one of my favourite Civs since Vanilla. I'm playing as them currently in BNW. China might have been better in the very beginning back when their Great Generals were even Greater.

China prior to G&K and BNW was perhaps the best all around Civ.

I have a soft spot for Babylon as I think I used them a lot in previous version of Civ, plus Greece was someone who I used a lot historically in the series, but I've yet to see or play as them in BNW.

Babylon doesn't get any faith or money bonuses but I still built so many Great Scientists, a rediculous amount, a plain ful of Universities around Babylon. With Arabia I opted for the Piety start then Commercial, it's worked OK, but I'm on a small continent so I don't use Caravans instead using Cargo Ships. The Caravan bonus would work even less well if Dido wasn't on the same continent with me...

 

[Muskie]

Inca are probably going to become my top civ again for their cheap roads combined with the new trading stuff.

Prior to BNW I'd say Inca were one of my top 5 Civs they farm so well. I like Civs that have a better archer as I generally open with Archery, safety first.

 

[Justice1337]

Buffed:

Every Religious Civ. Religion is much more powerful, and the gap between a civ who focused it and a civ who didn't is much wider. Something like Desert Folklore may get you a Religion, but it's no longer enough on its own to make it the best religion in the game. Religious buildings are now a lot more affordable, and there are a lot more outputs from Religion into other things. Byzantium benefits from this most of all, but even the Celts are helped.

Maya - The Long Count is now actually very good versus being just a difference in playstyle. Science victory times for the Maya will get faster, and any Maya game will give you faster tech than you saw before.

Russia - With Iron mine'able after Bronze Working, Russia on a Strategic Balance start will be very strong.

Persia - Banks got better, the Bronze Working tech got better, and Golden Ages got easier and more powerful in a relative sense.

Arabia - Replaced a UA that was almost worthless with a UA that's debatably one of the best.

China - With less Gold to go around early, Paper Makers are now much more powerful in a relative sense. One of the few civ's that can actually pay for enough Units for early conquest, which then roll into CKN's.

India - Probably the single biggest buff in terms of magnitude. The UA is no longer a negative. It's still probably quite far from one of the best civ's tho.

Spain - 500 early gold never looked so good.

Songhai - I never thought I would see it this way, but the Gold from River Warlord is actually very good now. Improved religion also helps the UB.

Huns - Bronze Working is a better tech now, and the city you can take with a couple early Battering Rams is now much better because other civ's can't buy Settlers.


Nerfed:

Every warmongering civ relative to the Zulu and Assyria. Power creep happens. Goodbye Greece, Japan, Denmark, Germany and all you others. Assyria for Deity/Immo SP, Zulu everywhere else.

France - They took away Anciene Regime, changing France from the aggressive/expansive powerhouse headed by Naploeon to the France of King Louis. I'll see how many games the Chateaux wins me v how many I lose because I can't get to Collective Rule before neighbors DoW me.

Netherlands - The UA was designed for a game that doesn't exist anymore. Not only is it now more difficult to trade, the happiness you keep from trades isn't as powerful now that expanding brings a 5% cost hike to techs. You might as well stay OCC until Caravans in BNW.

America - but who was playing them before anyway is the question.

Austrian - what happens when another civ gets a better version of what one alread has.

Polynesia - replaced by Indonesia in a similar way.


Overall:

What's troubling here is the trend. Vanilla Civs like Arabia and China who were already good got better. Civ's that were already bad like Ottomans, America and Greece got much worse relative to the competition, and they got no overhaul. Meanwhile, new overhauls like France arguably make the civ worse from a power perspective, if not a flavor one. I think the one ray of sunshine is Byzantium, which now plays like it was supposed to out of the box.

 

[Gucumatz]

I would agree with most of your list, but I severely disagree with Polynesia. They got boosted big time. Their trade ships can cross oceans early giving them much more extra gold. The culture per turn from Moai now has improved relatively since culture is harder to get normally, plus getting that culture converted to tourism makes Polynesia quite possibly the most powerful cultural civ now in game.

Being able to ocean fare immediately with Polynesia allows you to find new trading partners quicker for their incredibly powerful trade ships and can get you snowballing incredibly quick. An ocean going trireme can raid other civs trade ships with ease and watch as you pick off AI ships for free gold every few turns if at war.

Everything about Polynesia got better. Also the AI character traits for Polynesia were improved, so they are now a bigger competitor too

 

[tedoll78]

I play at least 50% of my games as France, and really miss having the early culture. Kinda wish that chateaus were available a bit earlier.

 

[Kizo]

Buffed: Ethiopia. As if ICS with them wasn't already powerful enough, the Order tenet that gives +2 happiness for Monuments (as well as halving their build time) makes Steles sickeningly good.

 

[Brutus2]

I think Greece has gotten better with each expansion. In vanilla you could keep CS allies and get a luxury plus a science boost and some free GP from Patronage. With G&K they added new types of CS, so you can get faith, unique luxuries and really lots of benefits from CS ally.

Now, with the world congress, having all those extra votes is huge. In my last game Greece controlled the world congress for the entire game. His CS had like 200+ influence above mine making them very hard to get away from his control. Several times I spent thousands of gold to get one CS away from him only for his spy to pull off a coup and take them right back!

I only won because I paid him to declare war on Persia who was the only civ that I did not have influential tourism with. He captured their last city, eliminating them from the game and giving me the win just a few turns before the world leader vote that he had enough delegates to win!

 

[_megafone_]

Greece got buffed with the new diplo game, and Polynesia now is probably top5 on water maps - the early exploration is huge, not only because of early ocean trade routes (safe from barbs too!) but also because exploration is more important than ever - founding the Congress is good, and being able to spot all artifacts right of the bat is good too. Arguably Germany can keep up too, because barbs now are a lot stronger - but I don't play warmonger civs so I'm not sure.

Some civs will always be better than others, that's the way of life - can't keep them all balanced. Only civ that I feel that NEEDS rebalancing is the Netherlands.

 

[pilot00]

Buffed:
Something like Desert Folklore may get you a Religion, but it's no longer enough on its own to make it the best religion in the game.

I would dissagree to that, to me desert folklore is as important if perhaps more so. If you find and spread a religion with a gold generating belief, you might as well as forgo trading, I am playing my first game and thats the case.

Buffed:

Nerfed:

Every warmongering civ relative to the Zulu and Assyria. Power creep happens. Goodbye Greece, Japan, Denmark, Germany and all you others. Assyria for Deity/Immo SP, Zulu everywhere else.

And that, Since playing as Greece I can tell you that the new warmongering diplo penalty scalling is extremely situational. You will have CiVs hating since the moment you DoW and others that will be looking the other way whistling!
The only problem is army maintenance but that can eventually be circumvented.
At the hands of the AI warmonger civs with early (ancient/medieval) UUs are an auto loss now since the AI doesn't DoW. But a human player needs to put a bit more effort. Havent seen the effects of the WC yet so I wont comment on that.

Netherlands - The UA was designed for a game that doesn't exist anymore. Not only is it now more difficult to trade, the happiness you keep from trades isn't as powerful now that expanding brings a 5% cost hike to techs. You might as well stay OCC until Caravans in BNW.

A misconception of the people playing the game: You cant trade lux resources for lump sums since trade one, but you can trade them for gpt and one for the other. Usually they will ask for something extra (in my case one horse) but you can remove that from the deal and they will accept it. So all in all you can translate their UA as a happiness boost now.

America - but who was playing them before anyway is the question.

Me and it worked

Polynesia - replaced by Indonesia in a similar way.

ACtaully they are vastly different and that can be illustrated the most, if you play a standard earth map as Polynesia and gun to colonize Australia early.

 

[Wuddel]

Nerfed:

Germany. I think it had problems in G&K already, but now they are completely pointless. How many camps do you kill on Immortal+. Not many. With the cool stuff they introduced, they look very bland.

Netherlands. The lump sum is gone. On the other hand, they can hand they are less trade dependant than other with the Polders.

 

[digrosz]

Everyone seems to forget that the Dutch still have their UU. The Sea Beggar absolutely dominates the seven seas if used correctly. I took out several coastal cities without even using frigates (logistics ftw, double attack and then get the hell out)

 

[PhilBowles]

Buffed:

Every Religious Civ. Religion is much more powerful, and the gap between a civ who focused it and a civ who didn't is much wider. Something like Desert Folklore may get you a Religion, but it's no longer enough on its own to make it the best religion in the game. Religious buildings are now a lot more affordable, and there are a lot more outputs from Religion into other things. Byzantium benefits from this most of all, but even the Celts are helped.

Don't forget the semi-religion civ - extra faith from religious CS for Siam.

As it happened I started next to a series of maritime and culture CSes, and Siam is boosted much as I suspected. Even tourism-Wonderspamming William can't break through my cultural defence, and I rushed through Piety so quickly you'd think I was spamming Great Writers.

Songhai - I never thought I would see it this way, but the Gold from River Warlord is actually very good now. Improved religion also helps the UB.

Good catch - I was farming a lot of money from barbs even as Siam. And don't forget just how much more common Barbs are.

Nerfed:

Every warmongering civ relative to the Zulu and Assyria. Power creep happens. Goodbye Greece, Japan, Denmark, Germany and all you others. Assyria for Deity/Immo SP, Zulu everywhere else.

Relatively speaking possibly the case, though in absolute terms even Germany was buffed (more barbarian camps, more advanced and diverse barbarian units). Denmark's key UU lies along the Iron Working route so was buffed by implication. But then, when a missionary can make the Zulu look underpowered as far as army-building goes, Germany's not going to look good in comparison.

France - They took away Anciene Regime, changing France from the aggressive/expansive powerhouse headed by Naploeon to the France of King Louis. I'll see how many games the Chateaux wins me v how many I lose because I can't get to Collective Rule before neighbors DoW me.

France looks more powerful than I'd expected given the figures you tend to deal with for theming bonuses, but it is much more specialised. DoWs seem a lot rarer.

Netherlands - The UA was designed for a game that doesn't exist anymore. Not only is it now more difficult to trade, the happiness you keep from trades isn't as powerful now that expanding brings a 5% cost hike to techs. You might as well stay OCC until Caravans in BNW.

I've found that gpt trading is more valuable now as a source of (non-trade route) income. That may help the Netherlands, but all they get is a minor happiness boost, and compared with civs like Indonesia minor is the operative word.

Polynesia - replaced by Indonesia in a similar way.

Not really. Indonesia has a powerful and versatile UA, but none of it resembles Polynesia's. Indonesia has a constraint that requires it to cross the sea, Polynesia has a straight advantage on sea maps from the start.

Do Cargo Ships have to follow the coast before Astronomy? If so, Polynesia's immediate ocean access will be a huge boost.

Overall:

What's troubling here is the trend. Vanilla Civs like Arabia and China who were already good got better. Civ's that were already bad like Ottomans, America and Greece got much worse relative to the competition, and they got no overhaul.

Greece is going to benefit from playing more diplomatically and taking advantage of its UA more than its UUs. Plus, generally less aggressive AI civs in the early game mean that Greece (and others) can be effective aggressors.

Everyone seems to forget that the Dutch still have their UU. The Sea Beggar absolutely dominates the seven seas if used correctly. I took out several coastal cities without even using frigates (logistics ftw, double attack and then get the hell out)

No one's saying the Dutch are bad, they're just saying they got nerfed relative to where they were before. Neither the UU nor the UI, both of which are very good, is affected obviously positively or negatively by BNW changes - the only variable that changed its value is the UA, which became weaker. So I think it's fair to say the Netherlands was nerfed.

 

[Calouste]

Everyone seems to forget that the Dutch still have their UU. The Sea Beggar absolutely dominates the seven seas if used correctly. I took out several coastal cities without even using frigates (logistics ftw, double attack and then get the hell out)

They are also still the only ones to get the best start bias in the game, Grassland. Of course it doesn't always work, but I see starts with say 2 Cows, 2 Stone, 3 luxuries and a strategic more often for the Dutch than for other civs.

 

[CanaDutch]

They are also still the only ones to get the best start bias in the game, Grassland. Of course it doesn't always work, but I see starts with say 2 Cows, 2 Stone, 3 luxuries and a strategic more often for the Dutch than for other civs.

I agree, I usually get good land with the Dutch because of the grassland bias.

 

[Calouste]

I agree, I usually get good land with the Dutch because of the grassland bias.

Another hidden benefit for the Dutch are Marshes. Marshes have a really low priority for cultural expansion, and in general lower the attractiveness for settling near them. So often by the time you have Polders, Marshes are still unclaimed and you can settle a new city near them and buy those tiles with gold. Not only do you get some resource-quality tiles, but Marshes with Polders keep their movement and defensive penalty, so you get a nice defensive buffer against that neighbor you just upset by settling so close and buying some of their tiles.

 

[PhilBowles]

They are also still the only ones to get the best start bias in the game, Grassland. Of course it doesn't always work, but I see starts with say 2 Cows, 2 Stone, 3 luxuries and a strategic more often for the Dutch than for other civs.

I don't know, I like Siam's jungle bias because I usually seem to end up with more sugar or gems than I know what to do with - very helpful with tile gold otherwise in short supply.