A Better America

I feel like the American civ needs to be updated; their UA is situational at best, and its UUs seem a bit historically inaccurate.

Yes the americans did have minutemen in that era, and yes they were sometimes effective but they were far from culture defining, and their history of failure far outweighs their successes, even George Washington himself held a poor opinion on these militia forces.

Additionally, the B17 didnt carry more bombs than the other bomber of its day, the B17 was famed for its survivability against both air and ground defenses.

My Proposal

• Change the B17; remove the siege promotion and give it a resist to ground based AA similar to its Evasion promotion.
• Change the minuteman to a UB the NYSE (i know, but i cant think of a better name) It would give +0.1% extra gold for every other stock exchange in the game.
• Change the UA to "National Debt" - You can spend your way into a deficit at the cost of 2% interest, and national unhappyness (based on the average cost of units at the time)

To explain the national debt power a little more in depth, perhaps an example:

Youre in the classical era and your empire is making 4 gold per turn; you need another warrior right now to defend against that barbarian coming into your territory, but you only have 100 gold. You can spend the 200 gold to get that warrior now but the game will charge you 2% (2 gpt) on your borrowed 100 gold to have that warrior now.

Also you get +1 unhappyness for going into debt

Thoughts?

 

I think America should get a special diplomat, the Dennis Rodman.

His ability is to visit a foreign power, like Monty, and make him chill out.

 

Interesting. I really like CIVS that don't have passive or boring UAs (America, Zulu, Greece) in favor for those that REALLY change the gameplay considerably (Spain, Assyria, etc). I like an idea that the USA can buy things going into the negative because NO OTHER CIV CAN! That is what a UA should do! Cause something that no other civ can achieve.

 

Terrible. If the point was to make America better, neither of those would do anything. The whole reason America is considered mediocre is because its uniques are situational. Those proposals are even MORE situational. No depth at all.

I personally like America, maybe it could do with a buff, but if you wanted to change its UA, why not double science from trade routes, and ideological pressure output has double effect? Anything but the ability to spend yourself into unhappiness and a miniscule buff to a building nobody uses anyway.

 

Historical inaccuracies don't really matter. A Papermaker replaces Library, a Cofee House replaces a Windmill (???), Satrap Court replaces a Bank, Ceilidh Hall replaces an Opera House, Caroleans definitely don't fit industrial era, Ballista wasn't really stronger than a Catapult and Romans used both and hundreds of other things. With stuff like this in, those tiny inaccuracies you mentioned doesn't matter.

NYSE sounds like the worst unique in the game. +0.1% extra gold? That's beyond awful.


National Debt sounds... Kinda weird as an unique ability? I myself don't like it, but I don't think you are serious anyway.

BTW, the Minuteman is underrated. They're pretty strong.

 

Okay I'll just go ahead and let you in on a secret; America is an average Tier Civ, they are better than roughly half of the Civs already. Their UA makes them the second best scouting civ in the game and you'll hit more ruins than the Shoshone although about half of those will be reveal territory and barbarian encampment views.

Their UA also gives them the ability to attack with Trebuchets and other siege units without having to stick a unit out in front for sight.

The UA is useful albeit not as good as the Shosone for settling a river/hill adjacent mountain tile and still be able to work a luxury or natural wonder fairly cheaply.

The UU are average replacements for their respective roles.

America the average civilization.

The ability to finance and rush buy would be stupidly broken because you could simply finance 8 CBs and only take -1 happiness in the beginning and go kill everyone. Your suggestion isn't warranted nor is it a good replacement

If you wanted to give them a UB make it the NYSE and have it be a stock exchange replacement with an additional Merchant Specialist slot.

 

I'd simply give them a free delegate/spy. And change the B17 with Pioneers!

 

I do agree that the US should get some sort of bonus related to its economy or culture, right now it's strictly a military power, and as superpowers go, the US had been less militaristic than many.

The B-17 was notable both for its survivability on missions and for its overall longevity, so I'd give it Evasion and Repair.

I hardly think the defining ability of America is its ability to run up a national debt. Plenty of countries have higher debts than the US, and for most of its history the US was a net lender (see: the Marshall Plan).

If I had to think of a UA that represents something unique and defining about America, I would think of America's historic acceptance of immigration (despite current Republican whinging, America is and remains a country built on immigration).

So rolling that together, I'd propose something like:

The United States of America:
Unique Ability: The New Colossus
+ 50% population growth in all cities during Golden Ages (or maybe all cities with a harbor?)
Unique Unit: Flying Fortress
Special Bomber unit that starts with Evasion and Repair promotions
Unique Building: Shopping Mall
Replaces Zoo. +3 , +3

The shopping mall has all the pop music records and blue jeans, after all.

 

There is just a lot of cognitive dissonance between America's real world position today, and its place in Civ as average to below-average (I'm in the slightly below-average camp). I don't know if they really need to be changed either, but I do find it irritating that the B-17 just comes too late to make a damn bit of difference. I think as a general rule, late game uniques should be UBs, not UUs.

So in the spirit of this thread, I'll make a throwback suggestion: bring back the Shopping Mall as a Stadium replacement and get rid of the B-17. The Shopping Mall would have one less maintenance (making it a more attractive choice to spam them everywhere -- for realism ) and +10-20% gold on top of the regular happiness.

I think this would provide a nice late game economic boost that America could use to buy more units etc. It fits with their theme and turns a relatively useless UU into a nice but not overpowered UB. Then America would have three average abilities that together make it a pretty strong mid to late game power.

 

America could use a slight boost / adjustment to compensate for the way the game has evolved since Civ V vanilla, but these ideas are bad. America is not a bad civ, it just isn't that exciting since it has little synergy and doesn't stand out too much from other civs. They should just get a simple boost, like diplomats provide 25% extra tourism to foreign civs.

 

I would have American settlers start with a promotion called Wagon Train that gives them +1 movement and the ability to defend, so you can send them to cross large reaches of land without a military escort. I would be satisfied with that one addition.

 

With the game favoring late game wars, I no longer think late game UU's are a bad thing. It's arguably better to have a late game UU than an early game UU now because early game conquests don't necessarily provide a major advantage over playing peacefully, whereas late game conquests are much easier to compensate for the happiness / diplomatic penalties. B17s are a beastly unit that can do a lot of damage and give you a chance to take numerous cities in a short time. They can make way more of an impact on the game than a stadium with a late game gold bonus (when gold isn't hard to come by then anyway). Besides, we really don't need another UB with something bland like a small gold or happiness bonus.

 

National Debt? Are you serious? You act like America is the only country with a history of debt. However, I agree with your other premises about their UU's - not culture-defining is right.

Pioneer is a good idea and is something iconic about American history:
Does not hault city growth
Has 6 strength, can only defend itself. Has Survivalism 1 and 2.

As for malls, I think they could be a replacement for the stadium, costs no maintenance and have 2 great merchant slots - gives +1 local happiness for every 2 luxury resources the empire has access to.

 

This is probably not orginal at all but what about:

Very easy to add. Make sense, since US have this thing with enterprise and private property and individualism. Helps the buy the tile UA, and warmongering as well. Kics in resonable fast.

 

I suggested a tourism focused ua in a different thread, but here are a few other ideas I've floated to friends:

UA: Land of Liberty +1 sight, +24% tourism to civs with differing or no ideology.
UA: Pax Americana: +1 sight, sea trade routes can defend themselves after discovering combustion.
UA: Schoolhouse of democracy: each worker garrisoned in a city provides +1 happiness, +2 culture, +1 tourism.
UU: Titan of industry: available at industrialization. Replaces great merchant. +2 movement. Can create unique tile improvement that yields +10 gold, +5 production.
UI: National Interstate Defense System: available at combustion. UI built by workers. Each tile costs 1 gold on top of railroad cost. Provides +10% production, +5 science, +5% city attack to connected cities (on top of railroad bonus).
UB: Fast Food Chain: replaces zoo. Provides +2 happiness and +5 food. 4 gold maintence cost.

 

How about a playable America past Archaeology?

 

really? you think the stock exchange buff is under powered?

+0.1% extra gold for every other stock exchange in the game.

So that means if there are 30 stock exchanges in the game, each one you have gives you +3% gold in that city . . .

IDK that seems super powerful to me.

Also, if it wasnt clear, the idea would be to scale the unhappyness penalty with the cost of things in the game, so if you went 500 gold in debt in the classical era the backlash would be huge because thats like 250x your GDP, but going 500 gold in debt in the atomic era is no big deal because everything costs like 600-800 gold anyway, and youre making more money anyway.

 

My other idea for a UA would be for America to ignore world congress decisions.

 

lmao, that's one of the funniest things I've ever heard

 

I do like the idea of America getting an immigration based UA. Perhaps it could be +10% growth in every city with an external trade route?

For the uniques, IIRC the Flying Fortress is just the nickname for the B-17 unit we already have so I dunno why you renamed it. The shopping mall is... eh. I had an idea way back for a unique Great Merchant that can be burned in major civs and give a culture boost (the idea was G&K era, it would be tourism now) in addition to the gold. Not entirely sure what the name would be though. Great Entrepreneur would be a possibility; Venture Capitalist would work though that might be a little odd consider Washington's love for the Order ideology.