America, Denmark, India. Who has the worst UA?

[AmericanDestiny]

Feel free to factor in UUs, UBs, and start bias.

What are some buffs you would recommend to each civ, without changing the flavor of the UA?

 

[comatosedragon]

Of the three you have listed, Denmark is the worst. India is second, and America has the best (especially counting the recent buff to minutemen).

The only thing I would change (if i could) would be to give denmark a ship UU (replacing ski-infantry). What its abilities would be, I know not.

 

[Kizo]

They all need help, but America needs it the most. Their UA isn't the least useful, as extra sight is nice, but it doesn't stand out in any way. America confers no bonuses that cannot be obtained by other civilizations. They're simply boring, like playing a template civ, and I'd make them less boring by giving them some kind of bonus to settlers or the much vaunted "fourth ring" idea. Anything to make them unique. As they are, they're garbage.

India's UA needs to stop being detrimental in the early game. Perhaps removing the happiness penalty for number of cities but also correspondingly lowering the happiness bonus could help. I still think they should have been completely revamped for Gods & Kings to feature religion, given the civilization in question, but that's not really "without changing the flavor of the UA."

Denmark is just weak conceptually. They're a domination civ with no advantage over any other domination civ. I can't think of anything constructive to say about them, unfortunately, aside from the usual "LONGSHIPS" (which wouldn't even be that interesting, but would be a damn sight better than ski infantry).

 

[joncnunn]

India by far; playing as most civs happiness is difficult to manage in early game but becomes progressively easier as the game goes on.
India's UA makes the early game happiness strugle much worse and by the time it's providing the major advantage, it's past the point that it matters unless going for Golden Ages.

I'd change it to remove the extra unhappiness per city and tone down the reduced happiness for population.

Denmark's UA is great on any map where there is coast; all their units that started embarked much much faster than if they were on land and they have a coastal bias.

America's UA includes a discount to cash buying tiles; which comes in handy getting some 3rd ring tiles that the culture is bypassing.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Denmark's UA is great, sorry. 50% faster embarked in ancient, 25% faster embarked in modern, siege units attacking from shore act like rocket artillery, settlers often can found cities a turn earlier, I don't know how people see their UA anywhere near the same level as America's. Not to mention that having two UU's on the same unit line is almost like a bonus UA - all melee units have amphibious and Inca-hill movement by industrial.

 

[GhostSalsa]

America's UA is definitely the worst in the game. It completely contradicts itself. It's supposed to be about early exploration, but extra sight is 100% nullified by forest, so it is only noticeable after everything has been chopped. Did the devs play even one test game with this UA before Vanilla.

 

[PrimoXanthous]

my recommendation for America, "All land military units have +1 sight. 50% discount when purchasing tiles. Gain only Half unhappiness when founding Cities".
the original unhappiness when founding cities is 4 so America would only get 2. What do you think?

 

[adwcta]

Denmark is inferior to America in most ways. America has the best late game UU by far, its early UU also upgrades well. People are just impatient.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Denmark is inferior to America in most ways. America has the best late game UU by far, its early UU also upgrades well. People are just impatient.

Impatience or otherwise, most people don't rate late-game UUs as contributing any value to a civ (any relative value over all the other civs) because you can't change the course of the game by that point. If Austria was suddenly given a quintuple-power XCom UU, no one would say they are now superior to every other civ.

Edit: actually it would be really cool to have to fight an AI with quintuple-power XCom units, wow.

 

[comatosedragon]

I have never understood all the hate for America (in this game). Without being rude, may I simply suggest that those who find the UA bad (admittedly it is not great, but I would call it middle-tier) are simply not scouting effectively? I think the main draw to it is worker stealing (and thus starting a nation based on slave labor). Finding CS's and AI's earlier means you will be ready to pick of 3-4 early workers, where otherwise you may only get 1 or none.

The discounted tile purchase is good (not great) -- IF you manually assign your citizens:
The turn before you are about to grow, purchase that hill tile for 30g and set your focus on production, get that production boost to whatever you are working on earlier and cheaper than any other civ. As another civ, you may be reluctant to purchase that tile, because you are saving up for a settler or something. With America, you can have both.

 

[GhostSalsa]

The discounted tile purchase is good (not great) -- IF you manually assign your citizens:
The turn before you are about to grow, purchase that hill tile for 30g and set your focus on production, get that production boost to whatever you are working on earlier and cheaper than any other civ. As another civ, you may be reluctant to purchase that tile, because you are saving up for a settler or something. With America, you can have both.

Food carries over in BNW, so production-focus for new citizens just dings your growth to the next citizen, if I understand the math correctly, which I might not, I'm bad at the math stuff. edit oh no apparently BNW new citizen food yield is still not counted and i've been losing out on production all this time

I like tile-purchase discounts, especially because border growth neglects hills too much, but it's a perk. I like it as a perk but don't think it makes up for a lacking core UA. I don't steal workers anyway, but again what does that have to do with manifest destiny. All the positive comments about America's UA are military-based and have nothing to do with exploration, because it is completely useless for exploration outside of desert.

 

[GoStu]

... because it is completely useless for exploration outside of desert.

Unless, you know, you stand on a hill. While it is hard to quantify, the extra sight can lead you to ruins, or seeing better spots sooner, meeting city states first, etc. It's still outclassed by the Shoshone in terms of tile claiming, but it's not worthless per se.

India's UA is decent for building a LOT of good sized cites. Despite a slightly tougher start where you're maybe a couple Happiness behind a blank slate civ, you'll be able to get more Golden Ages, and more population who contribute to science and production and Gold from tiles and everything else in midgame.

no comment on Denmark, I don't have them.

I think we're all overlooking the Mongols for worst place. Who fights city states?

 

[victorpras]

Given a certain game settings (namely Huge map size), India can be very very strong. 3.6 unhappiness/city and half unhappiness from population, it's like you can go both tall and wide at the same time.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I think we're all overlooking the Mongols for worst place. Who fights city states?

The Mongolia UA doesn't count, it's intentionally useless to counteract how abundantly silly the Keshik/Khan combo is.

India is the worst by the way, it's a huge burden when you need to expand the most and the time when it would be useful is about when the map has been filled up and the cost of a new city is greater than the benefit.

 

[iconocast]

America as a civ is pretty underrated specialy now after there UU gives them golden ages. but even just talking about there ua the sight and tile cost is pretty good as im always buying tiles in new citys ive founded for citizens to work just to make them grow faster

 

[layelaye]

America: same as now, and also :

new cities start with 50% food towards their second citizen ( including capital)

coupled with something like this added to liberty, america would have strong synergy with liberty and going wide, as they should.

 

[Crafty Bison]

The weakest but also the most fun is Denmark's, so I wouldn't want to change it much, maybe add rewards for pillaging? Otherwise, I'd only change the UU to a naval one, but to those who also want to see a non domination bonus, a Knarr UU replacing the cargo ship would kill two birds with one stone.

India needs a rethink as it's clearly more than one civ (to a greater extent than any other current one imo). The UA can be good but fundamentally doesn't feel right.

America is ok for strength, the minuteman kicks ass, and the B52 is awesome if a little late, so a weakish UA makes a middle type civ. However, it's just plain boring.

 

[Inhalaattori]

- I think good buff for Denmark UA would be some bonus to sea trade routes. Cheaper cargo ships for example? And I agree that Ski Infantry is stupid as a unit.

- India UA I would change totally. The concept is horrible.

- America is OK civ in my book although some changes to UA could make it more interesting.

 

[Vitruvius]

India

 

[Vitruvius]

India worst. Denmark is ok situationally and can definitely help in conquest.
America UA does not belong in this category. It is very useful. Definitely not one of the worst UAs. Buying those tiles really helps to snowball city growth and development. People underrate it because they always make the Shoshone comparison but then again Shoshone UA is OP. The sight range is very good for exploration and warfare alike.

Theres one UA that is probably as bad as India and thats Mongol Terror.



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