Weak UAs

[salty mud]

Sadly I have Gods & Kings, it's a shame that the map hasn't been updated for the expansion. Maybe I will try the mod workshop map. Thanks for the link!

 

[Polycrates]

So I played a game as Sweden (large immortal archipelago) and the UA is...not bad at all.
Somehow I managed to get a massive group hug going with five DoFs for almost the entire game, and plenty of war with my beloved neighbour Monty for us all to bond over and to give a few extra generals and admirals. This was my first time playing archipelago though so maybe it's easier to make friends when there's fewer land borders? In any case I was first to Industrial, and after that it was pretty much all over bar the shouting.

A few things:

- The idea of spreading religion three times with a prophet before gifting? Yeah, they thought of that. No dice.
- Between specialists and faith and war, I had great people coming out the wazoo. So fricking many of them. It was great.
- All the extra great people meant I was constantly fulfilling "we want a great whatever" quests and getting heaps of influence that way as well
- I didn't gift anywhere near all of my great people. Prophets, artists, merchants, generals and admirals pretty much all got gifted; engineers and scientists mostly got used by me.
- And I think gifting all of them would have been a mistake. Fighting to keep every CS in the game seems like a mug's game - the returns are diminishing and you'll be fighting the AI civs every step of the way. Rather I kept my bloc of about six consistent allies with whom my influence was so high that the AI didn't really even bother trying to fight over them. And for that the extra great people were excellent.
- Because I could choose my CS allies rather than mostly relying on luck with quests, I could favour the ones near me and with my religion. In particular, I could also focus on cultural CSs to really blast through Patronage and the specialist-aiding policies in rationalism and freedom.
- Apart from the "bankrupt" quest, I didn't spend a cent on CS influence, so I had plenty more money to invest elsewhere.

So yeah I feel that the extra CS influence - and the happiness, culture, food, units, science, faith and resources they gave me - were a big factor in shooting ahead of the AI. Shame I didn't get to use the UUs, the Carolean looks very deadly.

 

[Infiltrator]

- Sweden's UA is alright, but this civ is having an identity crisis - a peace-loving UA coupled with 2 warmongering UUs. I won't even touch the subject of gifting GPs to CSs for a puny 90 influence.

- Spain's is just completely out of whack. Either useless or incredibly strong based on how lucky you are. You can't play consistently with spain so I consider it weak.

- Germany's UA is pretty bad, and the UUs aren't helping either.

- I haven't played a single game with america, their UA is revolting to say the least.

 

[Polycrates]

- Sweden's UA is alright, but this civ is having an identity crisis - a peace-loving UA coupled with 2 warmongering UUs. I won't even touch the subject of gifting GPs to CSs for a puny 90 influence.

I disagree. When you start making firm friends, you also start making firm enemies. You'll annoy anyone who doesn't like your friends, and you may have to go into joint wars or denounce the same people to make them into friends or keep their friendship up. Staying neutral and not stepping on toes is a recipe for peace, making friends is a recipe for war.
Also, when you're focusing on CS influence, you're going to annoy people as well.
And see above for why the 90 influence is actually pretty good.

 

[SlithyTove]

Seems like every time I hear someone calling out civs as weak there is someone who will chime swearing that they are overpowered.

That's a sign that it is really quite well balanced.

I think the aforementioned Egypt for example is one of the best for tall peaceful empires. They seem to have a bias towards marble starts to boot.

On watery maps, I would rank England second only to the Ottomans for domination awesomeness. In naval conflict he who shoots first wins and the one with the most moves shoots first. Add in awesome longbowmen, 2 range machine guns, and the extra spy and that is some serious power.

I was horrified reading Sweden's UA the first time, but the more I have thought about it, if I built a strategy around that UA it could become sick indeed.

America and Spain seem to be the only real exceptions without many defenders.

America's +1 sight is under-rated, but it doesn't have much to really allow leveraging of that sight early on, and its UUs come into play long after the snowball effect is well under way.

Spain, as many have noted, is simply too random. I actually like it's inclusion however as it makes for an interesting change of pace.

 

[Bandobras Took]

America's +1 sight is under-rated, but it doesn't have much to really allow leveraging of that sight early on

What, you mean land units?

and its UUs come into play long after the snowball effect is well under way.

This has some justice for the B17 with Gods & Kings' tech tree (in Vanilla they were monsters), but now that your Longswords upgrade into No-Terrain-Cost Minutemen, I wouldn't say they come in *that* long after a snowball effect is well under way. Unless you set up your games to always win before gunpowder and never have to invade a continent across the ocean.

 

[SlithyTove]

What, you mean land units?

Yep, those. Most of the time I find that +1 sight would not have helped me much during early game invasions. I either showed up with enough units and my plan of attack was good, or it wasn't. Usually I am wanting it the most when I end up with units that can shoot farther than they can see.

It would be great with a fast-moving ranged archer unit like a Keshik, but Washington doesn't have much there.

This has some justice for the B17 with Gods & Kings' tech tree (in Vanilla they were monsters), but now that your Longswords upgrade into No-Terrain-Cost Minutemen, I wouldn't say they come in *that* long after a snowball effect is well under way. Unless you set up your games to always win before gunpowder and never have to invade a continent across the ocean.

I would argue that gunpowder is pretty far along in snowball terms. On the higher difficulties for a warmongering path you need to have sacked at least one, maybe two other civs to keep up tech wise. Otherwise they will be launching the spaceship before the first B-17 comes off the assembly line.

You could hold off on warmongering early and try to tech and build up for a big push once minutemen hit, but on higher difficulties you will just end up with your UU making the tech gap less problematic than it might otherwise have been rather than providing an advantage.

You can warmonger early, but Washington is probably in the bottom third for early warmongering. No UUs or production/science/faith advantages. If you can warmonger early with Washington you can pretty much do it with any civ.


Thanks for providing another example of how well I think they have balanced out the civs though.

 

[iconocast]

america and spain are generaly considers very good. and spain even too good if u get put next to el dorado. sure ppl are going to say americas ua is weak if ur looking at it from a perspective of culture victory. but anny warmonger will tell u that extra sight can mean the world of differance.
the only ua everyone seemd to agree on that was weak in vanilla was ottomans and ( sometimes ) germans, but even they have been revamped.

 

[Lance of Llanwy]

Spain's UA is definitely weak(especially if you play without start bias: I don't, I like being surprised), but it can be a lot of fun. And even if you don't hit the jackpot, you can at least fall back onto a pair of very good UUs for medieval-to-early renaissance mischief. And, of course, the Conquistador can also handle it all in regards to any juicy islands you stumble across. So even though the UA isn't good, Spain can get by just fine.
It's got to be America. Every other UA remained the same or got (usually a little) better, but America's got slightly worse. And it wasn't good to begin with. The idea behind it is easy to grasp, but the ability just doesn't work well, and I'm honestly surprised they haven't changed it at all. Their Musket UU is better than Spain's, I guess.

Other than them, Germany. Warriors aren't even on the right upgrade path for their UU, which is problematic because you can easily end up with little to no iron, and most of the units you're going to convert will be warriors. And unit upkeep costs just aren't big enough to make much of a difference.

 

[iconocast]

SPAIN
u get 2 happyness instead of 1 just for finding a wonder. NOT to mention the gold that can be between 100-2000 ( 2 tiles of barrier reef)just for finding a wonder. that is far far far from weak, thats enuf happyness from a few wonders to pay for a new city in happyness and (settler)gold. or even set u up for a killer nc start.
i realy dont see how ppl can think thast not good.

GERMANY
the ua realy comes down to the reduced cost for maitanance, u can feild a army 3 times the size on the same income as other civs ( just a guesstimate), specialy when u can get a fair share from babrs. that is pretty dam good for a warmonger. the cheap pikes are just the iceing.

 

[Xile]

Some of the UAs boil down to difficulty, map type and speed.

For example:

Askias UA is godly on slow game speeds, meh on standard.
Theodoras UA is useless on immortal or deity, decent on lower difficulties.
Elizabeths UA is good on archipelago etc, tho now with the extra spy it's OK on whatever map on higher difficulties.

GERMANY
the ua realy comes down to the reduced cost for maitanance, u can feild a army 3 times the size on the same income as other civs ( just a guesstimate), specialy when u can get a fair share from babrs. that is pretty dam good for a warmonger. the cheap pikes are just the iceing.

Bismark has to pay 75% land unit maintenance, that doesn't translate into 3 times bigger army.

 

[SlithyTove]

Some of the UAs boil down to difficulty, map type and speed.

Indeed.

Bismarck would be a lower ranking civ in general for me. But slap Marathon and Raging barb on and the story changes.

Theodora wins most worthless civ award for Deity play.

 

[merubhanot]

I don't understand a great deal of the opinions put forth on this thread.

America's UA (and Minuteman UU) are both fantastic. The ability to have early scouts that find all the huts and city states first is not negligible, and the visibility bonus helps a great deal in strange combat situations by giving warning of higher movement units and allowing you to safely place your seige units. Minutemen are INSANE. Not being affected by terrain is one of the more powerful abilities a unit can have (obviously not on level with Range and Logistics, but a solid second tier) and can lead to extremely lopsided combat situations if you pick your wars properly. I also love the land purchasing discount. Perhaps this is uncommon, but I generally find myself buying a large number of tiles in games to optimize my use of workers and grab important resources. B17s's are fine but admittedly a little late... Washington is still probably one of my favorite civs to play on immortal and deity.

Saying England is bad is just naive. It's not possible to lose with England on Archipelago for anything short of Immortal (same with the Ottomans, though I play them less), and even on Immortal it's an exceedingly powerful civ. Longbowmen are borderline broken since Range is such a busted ability and the AI has no clue how to handle ranged units, and the extra spy that they get in G+K is very useful as well. Easily my favorite civ for any map in which water is at all relevant, and still perfectly playable on less water centric maps thanks to the longbowmen and spy.

The Netherlands UA is AWESOME. The Netherlands is a civ that is all about the gold. You can sell of all your luxuries for money and use it to buy off city states that give you the happiness you need anyway. It's more powerful on a map with more civs, where you know that you can always find trading partners for everything, but is still quite good on smaller maps as well.

In terms of bad UAs, there are a few (though just looking at UAs is kind of silly..)

Arabia's UA itself is not good, but it doesnt matter much since Arabia's UA should really be thought of as its UB the Bazaar, which is insane.

Germany's UA is quite bad. There are better early anti-barb UAs, and on higher difficulties you rarely have time to actually go out and take down barb camps.

Songhai's UA is lacking for a lot of the same reasons as Germany's. The embarked units bit is occasionally useful, but not enough to really redeem the civ.

Carthage's UA isn't great. The free Harbors are really the only useful part, since the mountains bit is only occasionally relevant. I can see it being a blowout, but it's never happened for me.

Basically, I dont understand how some people dont like America, England, and the Netherlands. They're easily 3 of my favorite civs for higher difficulties. On the Sweden debate, I'm very much not sold on the civ, but I haven't tried it yet. It seems like if you actually reach a point where you can give away great people (aside from excess generals and admirals), you should probably win anyway. There are definitely easier ways to make friends with city states (just buy them off with the netherlands..)

 

[Xile]

The Netherlands UA is AWESOME. The Netherlands is a civ that is all about the gold. You can sell of all your luxuries for money and use it to buy off city states that give you the happiness you need anyway. It's more powerful on a map with more civs, where you know that you can always find trading partners for everything, but is still quite good on smaller maps as well.

Yeah, basically once AIs get to improving their spare luxes you get 6 happiness for each unique lux you have. It probably is one of the better UAs out there.

 

[Alziel]

I disagree. When you start making firm friends, you also start making firm enemies. You'll annoy anyone who doesn't like your friends, and you may have to go into joint wars or denounce the same people to make them into friends or keep their friendship up. Staying neutral and not stepping on toes is a recipe for peace, making friends is a recipe for war.
Also, when you're focusing on CS influence, you're going to annoy people as well.
And see above for why the 90 influence is actually pretty good.

+1 for this post.

Why are people reading 90 influence as poor or measly? On a level playing field with a Neutral CS this equates to a guaranteed alliance with CS of your choice for 30 turns. Now add in additional flavoring and clever tactics from a good player and you can have quite a number of pemanent CS allies which can never be wrestled away from you by the AI. I'm not even commenting on the other part of the UA (which does stack and has been commented on enough here) or the UUs.

Although Sweden's UA can be useful for securing an early CS alliance, it is strongest late game when you have GPs pouring out from everywhere (and if you don't then you've done something wrong). When you consider that Sweden's UUs are also post-industrial it's pretty clear that this is intended as a strong late game civ, geared particularly towards a Diplomatic victory (although not exclusively of course!)

Regarding the topic of this thread I think that it's blinkered to focus only on a Civ's UA - they do have UUs, UBs or UIs as well and it's the combination that reflects their strength not just the UA (for instance - most people are still saying that America is a poor civ, but they are actually much stronger now that Longswordsmen can be upgraded to Minutemen - same for any other Civ with a Musketman UU. Also, don't underestimate the strength of that +1 visibility that American units get).

Cheers!

 

[Wuddel]

+1 for this post.

Why are people reading 90 influence as poor or measly? On a level playing field with a Neutral CS this equates to a guaranteed alliance with CS of your choice for 30 turns. Now add in additional flavoring and clever tactics from a good player and you can have quite a number of pemanent CS allies which can never be wrestled away from you by the AI. I'm not even commenting on the other part of the UA (which does stack and has been commented on enough here) or the UUs.

Although Sweden's UA can be useful for securing an early CS alliance, it is strongest late game when you have GPs pouring out from everywhere (and if you don't then you've done something wrong). When you consider that Sweden's UUs are also post-industrial it's pretty clear that this is intended as a strong late game civ, geared particularly towards a Diplomatic victory (although not exclusively of course!)

Regarding the topic of this thread I think that it's blinkered to focus only on a Civ's UA - they do have UUs, UBs or UIs as well and it's the combination that reflects their strength not just the UA (for instance - most people are still saying that America is a poor civ, but they are actually much stronger now that Longswordsmen can be upgraded to Minutemen - same for any other Civ with a Musketman UU. Also, don't underestimate the strength of that +1 visibility that American units get).

Cheers!

I think it is a very strong ability. With other Civs I usually have a few GG/GA floating around. The problem only is that higher difficulty levels the AI completey negates CS with coups unless you have a spy there for a long time. So you want early warmongering to use the GG/GA early. I do not think that you would want to gift any other GP.

I think Germany needs a buff. The upkeep deduction is nice, but AFAIK Landsknecht and Panzer have not been buffed. The Landsknecht is stronger/later now, but lower cost is just boring. Historically they maybe should have no movement cost for pillage at least, or come with some free promotion. Considering they are not on the upgrade path of your barbs. I forgot the panzers bonuses I think it is ok, but with the Landship in there the window is even smaller. You will have them for a few turns until modern armor only.

 

[Polycrates]

I think it is a very strong ability. With other Civs I usually have a few GG/GA floating around. The problem only is that higher difficulty levels the AI completey negates CS with coups unless you have a spy there for a long time. So you want early warmongering to use the GG/GA early. I do not think that you would want to gift any other GP.

YMMV but my experience is that if you have really high influence with a CS, the AI tends to (mostly) just leave that one alone and focus on other CSs for their espionage/buying influence. When it starts getting close to 60, that's when they swoop in like vultures.
If you've pledged and have Aesthetics, that's 120 right there - which will likely put you out of reach for a while, I find. I was topping up any that dipped below 100 and had hardly any election shenanigans (damn I love that they actually use that word) for any of my pet CSs right up to the atomic era.

 

[Monthar]

If I understand the coup mechanics correctly, if the difference between the your favor and the ally's favor is greater than 40 the chance of success is always 0%. So keeping a high influence means the AI would have to dump a lot of cash, complete quests and try to rig the elections several times before they can even attempt a coup.

With that understanding, unless you can surpass the current ally's favor by a lot more than 40 points when you take over as the new ally, it won't be worth it.

Also, if I read correctly, when a coup is successful it swaps the points you have with the points the coup leader has. So if you're allied with them at 100 points and they staged a coup at 75 points, you'll drop to 75 and they'll jump to 100 if the coup is successful.

 

[iconocast]

Some of the UAs boil down to difficulty, map type and speed.

For example:

Askias UA is godly on slow game speeds, meh on standard.
Theodoras UA is useless on immortal or deity, decent on lower difficulties.
Elizabeths UA is good on archipelago etc, tho now with the extra spy it's OK on whatever map on higher difficulties.



Bismark has to pay 75% land unit maintenance, that doesn't translate into 3 times bigger army.

i thought it was 25% in GnK ?

as for arabia, the bonus becomes noticable when u have alot of citys and trade routes. but like u said bazars do make up for it. i will say this seems like the weakest

songs is dam good. clear barb camps at the start for a rather large cash crop? use said cash to by a lib or settler, w/e, awsome. later on as ur gathering puppets u start to rake in the large wads of cash from city pillaging.

u cant say carth is bad? free harbours? as in no maitanance, free hammers to a city just built? um yes plz.

i dont think anny of them are bad realy tho.

 

[Aurelius321]

I used to think America's UA was a little weak. Just played them though, and early game the cheaper tile buys make it easy to box in CS or AI's (diplo hit, but can deal with it) and during war a +1 vision is nice to see what's coming and also for indirect fire.