[NFP] April Update Video

Maybe in the minority but I found Georgia’s protectorate war cheesy. You get faith just for declaring war which makes the ability best when some Civ on another continent attacks a city state a world away, you declare protectorate war and mind your business and watch your faith generation explode.

The new ability requires you to actually move units around and play and conduct war in order to get a bonus, and gives the Civ a big bonus in the early game that it needs
 
It would have made Colombia actually have an identity, as opposed to being just a generic blitzkrieg civ.

Problem is that you can't really recreate the circumstances of South American liberation in the game so you basically have to use Bolivar as the base for the civ, which makes sense since it basically died with him.
 
Late to the party, but here's my two cents on the things in this video:

Oh my god. They actually did it. The one thing I was hoping to change was more. units. And it's the exact three units I was hoping for: Medieval Melee, Industrial Melee, and the Trebuchet. This'll likely solve so many of my complaints for the game: dead-end unit trees for certain eras, more techs will be more valuable, and the best part is all of those units will mean Civs will now be able to upgrade into their unique units! This is a massive buff to England, France, Japan, Norway, Khmer, and Georgia by itself, and I legitimately could not be happier in general about it.

Spain actually looks like a functional Civ now! Armadas in the Medieval Era is actually a massive deal even on continental maps, and is potentially game breaking on naval maps. I also love what they did with Treasure Fleets; the ability is actually pretty good even when just running internal trade routes on your own continent, and they turn into baby Portugal when trading abroad. And even though I don't think colonial settling is extremely viable in Civ VI (partially because of how little land is up for grabs in the mid-game, and partially because of loyalty as a mechanic) the bonuses you get for doing so is actually pretty nice.

I like the philosophy behind the Khmer here, and it makes them less of a one-trick-pony. Even though I remain dubious about high-population strats in Civ VI, they do get a lot of amenities, housing, and food to support that about as much as the game's systems allow. I also love the rework for the Prasat; even though Martyr spam was funny, it wasn't super consistent and having a city's tourism scale with population is a good synergy. And even still, the fact that there's way more robust avenues for Khmer to go tall makes them more well-rounded in general, even if they're still a religion/culture Civ at heart. Oh, and Domreys not needing to always be hard-built makes their mid-game conquest pushes much more viable. I'm not sure if the Khmer will all of a sudden be a great Civ, but they'll certainly be a lot more fun, and that's a win in my book.

The China buff is pretty ok in my book. As I've said before, when it comes to talking about China, I think the Great Wall and Kublai Khan's abilities are strong, and Qin's ability is broken, but Dynastic Cycles and the Crouching Tiger are lackluster. This isn't how I would personally buff the ability, as I think return to how the ability was tuned at release would be fine, but this is still good. Having the ability synergize with how you typically want to play China is a really good idea, though this definitely helps Qin more than Kublai, and he was already the clearly better leader choice.

Perhaps my hottest take in regards to Civ VI is that the Mapuche were the worst Civ in the game prior to this upcoming patch. Chemamulls were legitimately great (if weirdly limiting in placement), Toqui was fairly solid, the Malon Raiders were overly niche due to needing to be hard-built (and can't upgrade into Cavalry for some reason), and Swift Hawk was actually a detriment to you, since it could flip a city you were already sieging and completely reset the health-bar. With these changes, however, they might actually be great. First off, they buffed the already good part: Chemamulls now give production too—sure, I'll take it. Toqui now also apparently gives percentage-based culture and production, which is kind of wild actually, and it really helps to jump-start conquered cities. On top of that, great news: Swift Hawk isn't a detriment now! Since you now get extra damage to Free Cities, you now have a legitimate reason to use this ability, and since the loyalty penalty is insane now for Civ in Golden Ages, you're liable to do it really quickly, so you're probably not going to experience a situation where you're trying to siege a city, some unit suicide-charges your army, and inadvertently flips the city. These improvements are legit fantastic for Mapuche, and they probably end up jumping two tiers. The Malon Raider is still awkward to use if unchanged, but if it actually upgrades from Coursers and into Cavalry, then we're cookin' with gas.

Is Canada actually OP now?? They get actually more food and production for settling in Tundra than other Civs will get on normal-settling locations. That means that you're going to have an insane amount for free land that you can settle at your own leisure, and it'll actually be really good land too! Also, Canada's Better Naturalist (by which I mean the Mountie) now is even more of a Better Naturalist: you're not only the only Civ in the game that can convert Gold into National Parks (thereby saving Faith for Rock Bands), but you now get two parks as well! Canada has gone from arguably a joke Civ at release to a Civ that I unironically think is one of the best Culture Civs in the game.

The one disappointment I think of the video is Georgia, and while the changes to Tamar's ability will almost certainly give Georgia the first pantheon of the game (assuming Indonesia isn't in it), and it's definitely better that the Casus Belli part of the ability it's supplanting, Georgia definitely needed more love than this. At least the Khevsur don't need to be hard-built anymore, which is definitely good. With Mapuche skyrocketing in stonk value, Georgia probably return to the bottom of the barrel. Unfortunate.

Some other changes I'd like to see are minor buffs to Brazil, England, France, Kongo, Sweden, and major buffs for Poland, India, and the Ottomans. I would also like to see reworks for Scotland and the Dutch's leader abilities, because while I think those Civs are actually good, their leader abilities are just useless. Perhaps controversially, I don't really wanna see nerfs for the Civs that are already really good: they're fun to play, and I don't think any of them are game-breakingly strong. I would, however, like to see a rework to Babylon: something that I think would be fair is to make them not completely break the tech tree (you can only fully unlock a tech via Eureka if you've already researched the prerequisite technologies, in return for making their early game less weak.

Overall, this patch beyond exceeded my expectations for how they were going to rebalance the game based on how they handled the NFP patches. Though I still have some gripes with some of the systems in Civ VI, the balancing changes and (especially) the new units have rekindled my excitement for the game more than anything that dropped in the year-long cycle we've been on. Also, good news for those hoping for more Civ VI content: Kevin said "the final update of the season", which the purposeful wording of which definitely leaves the door open for another pass or expansion further down the road.
 
meanwhile poor old Arabia gets forgotten in the dirt... I HOPE they get changed since a lot of people have ranked Arabia as WORST CIV EVER.
 
meanwhile poor old Arabia gets forgotten in the dirt... I HOPE they get changed since a lot of people have ranked Arabia as WORST CIV EVER.
Who's saying that Arabia are the worst Civ in the game? A guaranteed religion, bonuses to science and faith, an early university that is both strictly better than the university and gives you faith, and even though Mamluks aren't OP and spammable anymore, they're still a great UU (that also have a very good timing push because of that early university that you can reach via the culture tree, buuuut I'm rambling). I can't take anyone seriously who thinks Arabia are bad. I'd like to see a more science/culture/trade Civ with Harun al-Rashid, but that's mostly due to my desire to see an Abbasid representation of Arabia based out of Baghdad instead of the Ayyubids based out of Cairo.
Robert the Bruce's ability is guaranteed to have a rework, Scotland is largely a terribly designed civ with 1 strong ability (Civ ability) and everything else just revolves around it, kinda like Korea. Korea will get reworked as well, the current civ ability will get transferred to Seowon, maybe the initial Science from Seowon will get nerfed a bit and the Science from Mines will be included into the adjacency bonus, so that they can use Rationalism, and Korea will have another civ ability.
As a Scotland player, I'd argue that they have two good things going for them. I like the Golf Course a lot, getting gold, culture (thereby late-game tourism), and amenities is really nice and synergizing well with Scottish Enlightenment, which as you said is great. Bannockburn is definitely the problem, and it basically never gets used. The Highlander is also a meme-unit, because it replaces a meme-unit, but that's not a deal-breaker for me as much as Bannockburn nearly is. Still hoping the Highlander replaces the Line Infantry instead of the Ranger now though.
 
As a Scotland player, I'd argue that they have two good things going for them. I like the Golf Course a lot, getting gold, culture (thereby late-game tourism), and amenities is really nice and synergizing well with Scottish Enlightenment, which as you said is great. Bannockburn is definitely the problem, and it basically never gets used. The Highlander is also a meme-unit, because it replaces a meme-unit, but that's not a deal-breaker for me as much as Bannockburn nearly is. Still hoping the Highlander replaces the Line Infantry instead of the Ranger now though.
I'm hoping more that Robert with his new ability gets a Man at Arms/Pikemen replacement UU in addition to the Highlander. :mischief:
 
I'm hoping more that Robert with his new ability gets a Man at Arms/Pikemen replacement UU in addition to the Highlander. :mischief:
I hadn't thought about that, but I wholeheartedly second those wishes now that you mention it. It is a bit odd how British-themed Civ VI's Scotland is for picking Robert the Bruce, leader of the Scottish rebellion, as its leader.
 
Problem is that you can't really recreate the circumstances of South American liberation in the game so you basically have to use Bolivar as the base for the civ, which makes sense since it basically died with him.

No, but I would argue that liberating cities that weren't yours to begin with is the closest thing to how Bolivar liberated "native" South America from Spanish conquest. He only started in Colombia but was intent on freeing every Spanish colony he could.
 
No, but I would argue that liberating cities that weren't yours to begin with is the closest thing to how Bolivar liberated "native" South America from Spanish conquest.

Sure but then what would a good win condition for Gran Columbia be? Bolivar is an all time great general and there isn't much else to build around for him. Not to mention the fact that Liberation Wars, and Reconquest Wars for that matter, are really hit or miss in the game so making that a strong part of Gran Colombia/Bolivar seems like it would really weaken them from a gameplay perspective. It's why Robert is kind of weak because you rarely get to make use of his ability. Honestly, I would actually like to see a scenario where you liberate South America as Bolivar, or Lautaro even.
 
Perhaps my hottest take in regards to Civ VI is that the Mapuche were the worst Civ in the game prior to this upcoming patch. Chemamulls were legitimately great (if weirdly limiting in placement), Toqui was fairly solid, the Malon Raiders were overly niche due to needing to be hard-built (and can't upgrade into Cavalry for some reason), and Swift Hawk was actually a detriment to you, since it could flip a city you were already sieging and completely reset the health-bar. With these changes, however, they might actually be great. First off, they buffed the already good part: Chemamulls now give production too—sure, I'll take it. Toqui now also apparently gives percentage-based culture and production, which is kind of wild actually, and it really helps to jump-start conquered cities. On top of that, great news: Swift Hawk isn't a detriment now! Since you now get extra damage to Free Cities, you now have a legitimate reason to use this ability, and since the loyalty penalty is insane now for Civ in Golden Ages, you're liable to do it really quickly, so you're probably not going to experience a situation where you're trying to siege a city, some unit suicide-charges your army, and inadvertently flips the city. These improvements are legit fantastic for Mapuche, and they probably end up jumping two tiers. The Malon Raider is still awkward to use if unchanged, but if it actually upgrades from Coursers and into Cavalry, then we're cookin' with gas.
I don't think this is a hot take if you'll pardon me. :lol: Some people would agree with you, some wouldn't say they were the worst but agree that it was at the bottom of the barrel, and some would disagree with you that it was the worst.

Before, they were at the bottom of the barrel that you didn't need to care about: now, they'll be one of the worst neighbors you could have, especially if their Governor Loyalty Bonus stacks.
 
I'm not sure that a random Korean YouTube player counts as "a lot". Arabia is actually pretty good.
oh but I've seen in Korean civ community that says Arabia stinks... like this one in "civ metropolis"- a biggest online civ community in korea.
https://cafe.naver.com/civilization4?iframe_url_utf8=/ArticleRead.nhn?referrerAllArticles=true&page=1&searchBy=1&query=%EC%95%84%EB%9D%BC%EB%B9%84%EC%95%84&exclude=&include=&exact=&searchdate=all&media=0&sortBy=date&clubid=13758585&articleid=268534
its title translated says "even when I look again Arabia still stinks"
and post says:
I tried to upload a highlight for a game I couldn't so I just upload a victory screen
 
Korea must be an awful Civ because they are bo-ring.
exactly why I hope Korea would get change in this update.

Also some Koreans REALLY hope for Arabian change
https://cafe.naver.com/civilization4?iframe_url_utf8=/ArticleRead.nhn?referrerAllArticles=true&page=1&searchBy=1&query=%EC%95%84%EB%9D%BC%EB%B9%84%EC%95%84&exclude=&include=&exact=&searchdate=all&media=0&sortBy=date&clubid=13758585&articleid=268534
they think Arabia in civ 6 is inferior than arabs in civ 5
 

Of course they would, the previous game's Arabia was blessed with not only one of the best unique buildings in the game, but also possibly the very best unique unit. One should hope that the upcoming balance changes make any civilisation feel as powerful and unique as the old Arabia did in its specialties.
 
I'm a sucker for the effects that let you turn one adjacency yield into another, so I actually like the Madrasa. But I wouldn't object to having Arabia's Faith+Science niche made a bit deeper.

I'm actually more interested in seeing (basically) all of the Rise and Fall leaders updated. I consider that era of Civ design to be among the less powerful and/or less interesting designs. If both Tamar and Lautaro are seeing changes, I think Poundmaker, Wilhelmina, Robert, and Chandragupta would also appreciate some updates too to varying extents.

And while I'm on the topic of R+F civs, What do we think the likelihood of Korea getting adjusted actually is? I have doubts that they'd want to "flatten" Korea's bonuses and distribute the power budget a more evenly between their Uniques. Although, it would probably be beneficial.
 
And while I'm on the topic of R+F civs, What do we think the likelihood of Korea getting adjusted actually is? I have doubts that they'd want to "flatten" Korea's bonuses and distribute the power budget a more evenly between their Uniques. Although, it would probably be beneficial.

Probably the ability to play tall like the Khmer are getting. That would be my guess since their governor abilities point in that direction but they lack any real way to do so.
 
Sure but then what would a good win condition for Gran Columbia be? Bolivar is an all time great general and there isn't much else to build around for him. Not to mention the fact that Liberation Wars, and Reconquest Wars for that matter, are really hit or miss in the game so making that a strong part of Gran Colombia/Bolivar seems like it would really weaken them from a gameplay perspective. It's why Robert is kind of weak because you rarely get to make use of his ability. Honestly, I would actually like to see a scenario where you liberate South America as Bolivar, or Lautaro even.

Oh I don't see it as being Bolivar's strength. Just a small facet they could add to give GC a clearer identity. I wouldn't expect it to come up often (so tacking it on to all the other abilities wouldn't substantially impact balance), but just the fact that it could would make it feel more like GC than just +1 movement to everything and extra generals.

Again, my principle on Scotland is, like any other civ with a casus belli ability, I like it as a small addition to other, more universal abilities. It adds flavor. But my problem with Scotland as opposed to GC or any other civ with a casus belli ability is that it doesn't fit the flavor of Scotland at all.


I don't think this is a hot take if you'll pardon me. :lol: Some people would agree with you, some wouldn't say they were the worst but agree that it was at the bottom of the barrel, and some would disagree with you that it was the worst.

Before, they were at the bottom of the barrel that you didn't need to care about: now, they'll be one of the worst neighbors you could have, especially if their Governor Loyalty Bonus stacks.

I did get the impression that the Mapuche weren't great simply because their playstyle niche encouraged conquering cities without really giving them the same sophistication of tools that other domination civs had. Giving them a reverse Eleanor mechanic and some more infrastructure really helps shore up their weakness as a raider civ with no backup plan as to how to keep cities (or otherwise get by with fewer cities).

There are 50 civs--one of them is going to be the most boring.

And that one is always going to be Babylon. :p
 
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