A speculation thread: special abilities

[GoodSarmatian]

New info:

These leader abilities are shown in the video:

Washington - America
All land military units have +1 sight. 25% discount when purchasing tiles.

Harun al-Rashid - Arabia
+1 Gold from each Trade Route and Oil Resources provide double quantity.

Montezuma - Aztec
Gains Culture for the empire from each enemy unit killed.

Wu Zetian - China
Effectiveness and spawn rate of Great Generals increased.

Ramesses II - Egypt
+20% Production towards Wonder construction.

Elizabeth - England
+2 Movement for all naval units.

Napoleon - France
+1 Culture per turn from Cities before discovering Steam Power.

Bismarck - Germany
Upon defeating a Barbarian unit inside an encampment, there is a 50% chance you earn 25 Gold and they join your side.

Alexander - Greece
City-State (shaking hands symbol) Influence degrades at half and recovers at twice the normal rate.

Gandhi - India
Unhappiness from number of Cities doubled, Unhappiness from number of (head symbol) Citizens halved.

The symbols in the game all look a bit different.

I'm looking for more I can write down... stay tuned.

Looks like I was initially right about the Aztecs, Egypt and Greece. Overall I'm a it disappointed with some abilites and worried about balance.
Germany and France both have abilities that will become obsolete in the mid or endgame, but they could compensate that with a strong early advantage, and both civs get one of their UUs around the time their ability becomes useless.
Acien Regime actually seems fitting. You'll have incentive to delay industrialisation and capitalism just like Louis XIV did to keep the nobility powerless.
India is more interesting than I first thought because it changes the way you play: only a few very large cities, discouraging wars of conquest and overexpansion.
As expected Monty, Alex and Napoleon will probably be among the biggest warmongers: The Aztecs will profit a lot from killing, Greece might be drawn into many conflicts over city states and the usefulness of the French ability is proportional to the number of cities they own.
England will suck hard unless they find a way to make navies actually useful in the early game or their UUs are among the best.
It seems like Rome is gonna be just as overpowered as it was in Civ IV...

 

[Calouste]

New info:


Looks like I was initially right about the Aztecs, Egypt and Greece. Overall I'm a it disappointed with some abilites and worried about balance.
Germany and France both have abilities that will become obsolete in the mid or endgame, but they could compensate that with a strong early advantage, and both civs get one of their UUs around the time their ability becomes useless.
Acien Regime actually seems fitting. You'll have incentive to delay industrialisation and capitalism just like Louis XIV did to keep the nobility powerless.
India is more interesting than I first thought because it changes the way you play: only a few very large cities, discouraging wars of conquest and overexpansion.
As expected Monty, Alex and Napoleon will probably be among the biggest warmongers: The Aztecs will profit a lot from killing, Greece might be drawn into many conflicts over city states and the usefulness of the French ability is proportional to the number of cities they own.
England will suck hard unless they find a way to make navies actually useful in the early game or their UUs are among the best.
It seems like Rome is gonna be just as overpowered as it was in Civ IV...

"All naval units" for England probably includes the auto transports. That's going to make naval landings far behind the frontline an interesting possibility for England.

 

[Schuesseled]

"All naval units" for England probably includes the auto transports. That's going to make naval landings far behind the frontline an interesting possibility for England.

exactly what i was thinking, not suck hard at all.

 

[Calouste]

exactly what i was thinking, not suck hard at all.

And you can just throw a Scout in the water in Civ5 and if he is English he will explore a lot faster swimming than walking.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

"All naval units" for England probably includes the auto transports. That's going to make naval landings far behind the frontline an interesting possibility for England.

I didin't think about that, but very good point. With 1upt and conquest victory only requiring all capitals it should be much more useful to transport units by sea and avoid the enemy's line of defense.

 

[12agnar0k]

Thanks, nice information there.

In love with the civ abilities,

The ship of the line btw was shown to have 7 movement compared to its counterpart frigates 5 movement, we now know this bonus comes from the Unique Ability. So that means a ship of the line, is only better than a normal frigate by +2 ranged attack lol. (17 instead of 15). Though it may well have another "unique ability" on it, like the fact Legions can build roads, but only +2 ranged attack is obviously an intentional "lets not make this unit completely overpowered move" as it already is faster than all enemy frigates.

But yeah, some really interesting civ abilities, and I don't think Romes ability (all buildings already built in the Capital cost 20% less elsewhere) is going to be the strongest necessarily, unless the "capital" refers not only to Rome, but all captured capitals, then Rome really would be a war machine. For each capital it takes (you won't necessarily build all buildings in a city,) some buildings you didnt previously build can become cheaper globally. Assuming a city annexed will keep buildings previously built. Though I do admit in general, it is still a good ability. But so are some others. Englands dominance of the Oceans for example.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Where did you get that info?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Mef got it from a preview video on the DVD of a German magazine.
Thread here:

 

[12agnar0k]

Arabia will be a powerful oil dominace civ in the late game, take them out quick .

 

[Celevin]

Wow, its hard to tell of course without playing the game, but France, Germany and China seem to have got shafted pretty badly. +20% to wonder building is not close to half of what the Industrialism trait did in Civ4, and that was already weaker than most.

I have a feeling that Arabia and Greece could be pretty powerful civs now.


But then again, maybe this all balances out when you consider UUs and UBs.

I agree on Germany, but France and China seem to be harder to judge. We don't know how much 1 culture really is anymore, and China's will be good no matter how big the map, or what game type it is.


I don't like Germany, England, or Arabia. They sound like they would be greatly weakened or strengthened on some map types, or map sizes. I think abilities like Ghandi's or Montezuma's are the way to go.

 

[Aramel]

Some of these will likely change somewhat between now and the final version. I don't think they settled on all the bonuses for Civ4 until the very end.

That being said, one problem I see with Furor Teutonicus is how swingy it is going to be. Half the time you get 25 gold and a unit, the other half, nothing. It'll get really annoying if you lose several coin flips in a row. I think it would play better to get the 25 gold half the time and the unit the other half of the time. It wouldn't feel as random.

 

[Calouste]

I agree on Germany, but France and China seem to be harder to judge. We don't know how much 1 culture really is anymore, and China's will be good no matter how big the map, or what game type it is.


I don't like Germany, England, or Arabia. They sound like they would be greatly weakened or strengthened on some map types, or map sizes. I think abilities like Ghandi's or Montezuma's are the way to go.

The World Wonders that have shown up so far only give one culture each, compared to 6-10 for most of the early ones in Civ4, so 1 culture should be worth quite a bit.