(8-41b) 4UC Sweden Alternative

[DoveCDog]

(8-41) 4UC Sweden

This is a thread for discussing the addition of 2 more unique components to the Swedish civilization.

forums.civfanatics.com

Current:

Spoiler :

1. Lion of the North
Melee land units gain +20% CS when attacking
Great General and Great Admiral combat bonus increased by 15%
When a Great General is born, all Military units are fully healed and gain 15 XP
Siege units gain +1 Moves

2.Hakkapeliitta (replaces Lancer):
available at Metallurgy
350 Production Cost
requires Horses
37 CS
5 Movement
No Movement to Pillage
+1 Sight
Hakkaa Päälle! (+20% vs wounded Units, heals 30 HP from killing Units)

Proposal:
1. Lion of the North (redo from scratch)
Great Generals and Great Admirals provide a +20% CS and a +20% RCS bonus when attacking. Provide +1 Moves to nearby Siege units.
Can use enemy Forts and other non-gpti defensive tiles.
Forts and Citadels provide an extra +25% defensive bonus
Forts and Citadels provide an extra +1 Production, +1 Science, +1 Border Growth Points, scaling with era

2. Hakkapeliitta (replaces Lancer):
No Movement to Pillage
Hakkaa Päälle! (+20% vs wounded Units, heals 20 HP from killing Units)
Can Fortify

Rationale:
The current UA gives +35% strength when attacking with melee units. In comparison, the Hunnic UA gives +10% for each consecutive strike. A Hunnic player would have to attack the same target upwards of seven! times to get a similar bonus as the Swedish player gains on every single melee attack. By reducing it to +20% and giving it to all land units, we are reducing it to three attacks for the Hunnic player to match the average damage.
To make up for it, we allow using enemy Forts and building your own Forts in enemy territory. This should be a unique and interesting mechanic, as opposed to just a numbers boost.
Having military units fully heal when a Great General is born is not only gimmicky but also infuriating to play against.

Note:
Citadels in enemy territory must still be adjacent to your land (EDIT: and not adjacent to an enemy citadel or city). They will become yours once you build them. You cannot use enemy Citadels and are still damaged by them.
In comparison, Forts you build in enemy territory will belong to your adversary, but you still gain the bonus from standing on them.

EDIT:
Original proposal included letting the player build forts in enemy territory. It has been removed since tiles can only have 1 improvement.

 

[hokath]

That's a lot of stuff on the UA.
Remember the text has to fit inside this box

Spoiler example :

Some recent ones has gone to 4 lines, but this actually breaks on smaller resolution so they really need rewording to be shorter.

 

[rkkn]

can build [...] Citadels inside enemy territory.

How does this work with regards to the land steal?

 

[azum4roll]

It's the passed Lebensraum effect, probably. Except requiring to also be at war.

 

[Chinag]

Being able to build forts and citadels in enemy territory that you can also use is interesting, but the bonuses doesn't seem that strong in practice.

The use case I can think for the UA is either in the frontlines outside of a city range, or for sieging a city.

IIRC by default a fort takes 4 turns to build (Sidenote: Is there a way to see an improvement's required Building Points in-game?)
Most likely a worker needs to remove an improvement so that's either +1 or +2 turns.
If there's forest or jungle then it will add even more turns.
Also remember that you can't build forts on tiles with resources.

So in a frontline scenario, the "build a fort in enemy territory" part of the UA will likely not matter at all. If you expect a grindy frontline then you'll most likely build forts and roads in your own territory during peace. It's hard to justify pushing through the enemy frontline and then fortifying then just defending from your own territory with way stronger heals. Especially with how lengthy it can be to get a fort up.

In a siege scenario, both the lengthy build time and inability to build forts on resources either makes the bonus arrive roughly 6 turns into a city siege or being unable to build one in the first place. You also carry the inherent risk of making a good defensive tile for your enemy if they manage to take back a fort tile you built.



You could argue that the bonus is more about using enemy already built forts and citadels than making your own in their territory, but that's relying on the AI building the improvements in the first place.

Scouring through a turn 160 Emperor Pangea game in the global observer mode, I can count the amount of forts and citadels the AI built with both my hands. The AI is still very conservative about building forts, and mostly builds them near borders instead of near their cities. GG and their citadels are mostly used by AI to landgrab than create great chokepoints. The UA feels mostly like "A random enemy tile near your border gives you really strong defense bonuses" which isn't particulary interesting to strategise about.

Also would Swedish units be affected by the end of turn AoE from enemy citadels?

 

[pineappledan]

Would that ability allow you to replace an enemy’s existing tile improvements with forts?
If so that sounds really annoying to have happen to you. If not then the ability becomes almost unusable.

 

[paul_soryu]

IIRC by default a fort takes 4 turns to build (Sidenote: Is there a way to see an improvement's required Building Points in-game?)
Most likely a worker needs to remove an improvement so that's either +1 or +2 turns.
If there's forest or jungle then it will add even more turns.
Also remember that you can't build forts on tiles with resources.

Could make it so that Swedish forts can be built in 1 or 2 turns, regardless of what is underneath them (improvements, resources or features). That would make the ability usable and maybe even interesting, but I don't know if the AI could handle using it in enemy territory as well as a human could.

Is there a reason forts are not allowed to be built on top of resources? Like, there could be a nice choke point for a fort, but a resource on a tale just wouldn't allow to build one. Also I thought removing an improvment is instantaneous, you just start building a new improvement.

 

[msw1]

Instant forts would be OP considering the buff the UA would give them.

 

[paul_soryu]

Instant forts would be OP considering the buff the UA would give them.

They are either OP or useless. I think removing or lessening an extra +25% defensive bonus, and making Forts take 2 turns to build would make it a playable unique mechanic. 1 turn is indeed too much, as the enemy wouldn't even have a chance to kill a unit and a worker building a Fort.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

I dont really see how this makes sense. Im not a huge history buff but im not aware of Sweden building a lot of forts and utilizing them in the 30 year war, which is when Gustav II Adolf was warring. Happy to be proved wrong. I also think that it isnt that useful of a bonus (the citadel in enemy land is, but building forts isnt). And too much text.

I dont think the UA needs changing. The UC, however, feels like they need a change.

 

[Chinag]

Mmm, I assume the enemy fort and citadel usage is because Sweden was really good at being on the offensive? Most of their famous fight was done on enemy land.
The building in enemy territory is just an extension of that original thought, but if anything that is a very Roman thing to do.

I do know Swedes loved to build fortifications and defenses in their land though. That's practically their mentality the last 2 centuries, so bonuses to forts isn't that dumb.

The current UA gives +35% strength when attacking with melee units. In comparison, the Hunnic UA gives +10% for each consecutive strike. A Hunnic player would have to attack the same target upwards of seven! times to get a similar bonus as the Swedish player gains on every single melee attack. By reducing it to +20% and giving it to all land units, we are reducing it to three attacks for the Hunnic player to match the average damage.

The deal with the original is that the original 35% dmg bonus is locked to melee units. While Huns is a lesser bonus, it is most likely being dealt by Ranged damage, which is always safer to do. The extra CS damage for Melee isn't reliable against strong cities, but Huns ramping damage is great for sieging said strong city with ranged and siege units.

Also just realized you locked the UA's DMG bonus behind a GG/GA now... Which makes Sweden noticeably weaker. While I agree that Sweden's GG full heal is annoying, both nerfing the other half of the UA and giving them a lackluster bonus isn't quite it. I rather just remove the full heal on GG spawn and try to allocate it somewhere else. Maybe +5 Healing from Pillaging and Double the amount healed from Promoting?

Also to round up the discussion: The UU
I know it's a change to make the new UA fit more thematically, but there isn't any historical precedent for that unit to be able to fortify. They're light cavalry known for scouting and devastating charges, not hunkering down

 

[DoveCDog]

You guys have raised good points I didn't consider. I had imagined the forts temporarily replacing a pillaged tile, but I understand now that wouldn't work.
I will remove this from my proposal as obviously workers shouldn't be able to delete gpti and such. It should also fit in the 3 lines now.
I would like to make forts more useful in general, but that is a separate proposal that would need to be made.
I have also added a clarification that all non-gpti defensive structures in enemy territory can be used (chateau, encampment, etc...) to make up for it.
Im not happy with the UU either. I would actually prefer something from an earlier era. If anyone knows Sweedish history and has any ideas please share.

 

[L. Vern]

Sponsored

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.