Ticio
Prince
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2020
- Messages
- 349
The post was oringinaly to change Spain into an explorer civ, as Byzantium took is place as "Religious/conquest". The original post were ideas to make an explorer Civ if Portugal was not included in the game.
Luckily for us, Portugal is now the las Civ on NFP and so the post is technically not needed anymore.
BUT, as other people has pointed out in other threads, Portugal has taken the place of "international trader" that Spain had with "treasure fleet".
At the moment, Spain has lost both the "identities" it had: "international trade" and "religious conquest".
Therefore, with the 2/3 patch coming I will let the thread just in case anyone has new ideas!
***********
Of course, only one or 2 changes could be use, as the exercise is to Change Spain a little to make it more focused on exploration but also still have the ability to play Religious/conquest... not to make them OP.
Some points are just to make them more viable and versatile and be able to face Byzantium (on paper they are a counterbalance to them but in reality they cannot compete against them).
Some changes could be:
I) Philip:
1) add/change some exploration bonuses to Philip II.
a) XP, gold or faith bonuses when discovering Natural wonders
b) When Spain discovers a Natural Wonder gains Great Prophet points (More points if he is the first to do it, and after founding a religion) (Thanks to Jesses!).
This could improve the actual problem of Spain not having any bonus founding a religion, but also give an "exploration" bonus!
c) Unique Unit: Galleon with maybe +10 Cs on oceanic tiles or +4 Combat Strength for each adjacent Galleon.
(The galleon system and ship, basically, started with Philip II and turned famous during his period).
d) Add a bonus to "el Escorial". Spanish religious units could have the ability to cross ocean tiles. If any unit (naval, military or civilian) goes in formation with a religious unit, they can go through ocean tiles too. (Thank you CoconutTank)
This would allow Spanish to reach other continents through water early on, giving them a chance to colonize or conquest some cities there. Right now, they have a strong disadvantage to take land in other continents, as they do not have bonuses to water (even if they were the ones to reach the new continent IRL).
I think is a great idea from CoconutTank as the bonus would not be very strong:
- Early low number of religious units = few units crossing oceans).
- Wanting faith points for other purchases, not exploring
- Using the religious units for converting instead of exploring.
e) Give spanish explorers/ recon units the ability to go through oceanic tiles since the start (or after discovering a wonder or Astrology). This way, they could explore new lands, letting the Civ anticipate thebest way to colonize other continents (so they have a tiny advantages as they know what is there).
2) Make a Philip II persona only focused on Exploration.
Adding some of the bonuses stated before and maintaining the "religious" Philip.
II) Treasure Fleet:
1) Improve Intercontinental bonus:
This is a change I already made in a past post but I think could be interesting; +1 production +1 food per every continent the trader goes through (If the trader goes through trade post or cities that are in different continents it add the bonus. This way the bonus follow up with the increasing prices and is not OP as it depends on the number of continents and if you manage to do a trade line that match the requisites).
OR
+1 Yields for intercontinental trade each time you have a city in a new continent. Right now, if you find a continent bordering your capital and it is big enough you have 0 incentives to go colonize other continents.
At the contrary, for England you are rewarded for doing so, as you get more bonuses each time you colonize a new continent so it is beneficial for them to go explore for more lands.
Therefore, I think that adding yields to treasure fleet for every continent colonized could do the trick (2 continents? +1food/production; 3 continents? +2; 4 continents +3; and so on).
That would force Spain to look for more continents if it wants to take full advantages of their bonuses, just like england with the +1 trade route.
2) Add a bonus that allow Spain to make longer trade routes. This bonus would allow them to trade double distance, so 30 tiles for land and 60 for water instead of 15/30. This would allow Spain to take profit easier from their intercontinental bonus and give them a pretext to Explore other lands.
Most important, if they spawn in the center of a continet, they could reach civs/cities in other continents (depending on the map, more that 15 tiles for sure) but also allowing them to settle a second or third city in other continent and gain the bonus without having to wait for 30 turns for the trading post.
I first exposed this idea for a City state or a Great Person, but it could be nice for Spain as it would represent perfectly what happened with their trade line in Manila (Philippines). It was a trade line, without stops, from Philippines to actual Mexico!
3) Change the ability to form Armadas and Fleets and give Spain the ability to build directly the armadas and Fleets before the Seaport. Maybe with a port building that allows them to do it without being OP. That would allow them to make good use of their bonus, as it is far better to make a fleet or armada directly from the seaport (as it is faster and take much lesser resources) that to build ships 1 each time and then merge. them. The building would turn obsolete as soon as you research electricity, but that would prevent Spain being too strong on water maps.
III) Contextual and Synergic changes:*
1) Change Religious Beliefs:
a) Change "Warrior Monks" so instead of "Burial grounds", it comes with "defender of the faith". This way, Spain can chose to defend herself early (monks+ 5 cs) and still use burial grounds that is her most synergetic belief. (As other civs have very synergetic beliefs (Work ethic/Russia/Mali/etc-Crussade/Byz.), Spain is lacking one).
b) Add a Belief that affects different continents. Something based in the Holy orders that went to new continents (Jesuits, Dominicans, etc.). It could be "double religious pressure on holysites in another continent" or whatever.
2) Add a City State that have a bonus that plays with different continents.
If you like the idea, feel free to add whatever bonus you think could make Spain more of an "exploration" civ.
Also to criticize the ideas!
V) I'm adding a post made by Josephias. He has very interesting suggestions,. As they are already in their own corpus i will add them enterely whiout changin any word! That you Josephias!
"""""""However, instead of proposing an improvement based on lenght of the trade route, my proposal would require intercontinental expansion. I think this brings forward Spain's strong focus on actually settling and governing the new explored lands, by setting up specific laws, governors, administrations, etc.
Treasure fleets were huge targets because they cummulated the wealth of all the continent in a single voyage. Internal trade routes would end in Veracruz or Cartagena (de Indias), and then the fleet was assembled and sent to spain (Cadiz, Seville), were it split again to the final destinations.
This gave me the idea of increasing the bonus of treasure fleets depending on how much cities you own in the continents at the two sides of the route. (it could also be in non-home continent, but I think it balances better if you consider both sides). The "level" of the route would be the number of cities that is less in each of the two continents. So in example
This will push expain to really want to expand into different continents for increased rewards. It will be a risky strategy, but a different gameplay style and with a reward that pays the risk. Also, as you increase the trade route bonus, you could also increase the pillage yield, as suggested in Ticio's routes, to attract piracy
Loyalty issues out of a "expand in at least two different continents" strategy should be handled (as Spain did), by religion. For Spain it could be considering doubling both the loyalty bonuses for same religion. And also the loyalty maluses for different religion. Spain's zealotry was not that much a matter of piety than of asserting the king's authority, as many foreign religions practices were associated -in some cases correctly- to external threats (islam to Ottomans, protestantism to England and France, and -in the case of Charles V, I in Spain - to nobles wanting to get independence / preeminence onthe HRE). The fact you need to negate this penalty and ensure your bonus would make the inquisitor bonuses more worthwile.
You may add, as commented in the other thread, a culture bonus for cities following only Spain's religion (something similar to the +culture of the monument in fully loyal cities)
As Spain relies in religion, it makes sense to give them a GPP bonus to found one. However, as commented in the other thread, I think it not needs to be straightforward to be one of the first founders and pick beliefs, as its gameplay is not that directly religion-focused, but more indirectly. I would make them have some kind of "late religion" bonus (in the same sense Arabia gets always the last religion, but not that strict).
My first idea on the subject is giving them a boost on GPP that increases with more religions being founded (or, at least, found), linking it to the Treasure Fleet trade route gameplay, I suggested giving them a big GPP boost if trading with a civ wich already has a religion. (maybe +3 or +5 great prophet pts. per trade route). A more simpler approach (sill linked to exploration) would be to give them a GPP boost or a big lump sum of GPP each time they met a civ with a religion. That is: Spain will have no direct bonuses to start the great prophet race, but will push as it discovers there are less options to get one, in order to reach the finish line before they run out.
Last, a pair of mission changes. To help with the "focus" issue in Spain's start, mission unloc could be shifted to Teology, but only with the faith production, and maybe an additional help to missionaries and religious units (e.g., as the name implies, +1 religious charge to missionaries, and maybe to inquisitors under Philip's LUA). Missions woud still need spain to focus in exploration to shine, so I'll keep the loyalty and science bonuses locked until that civic is researched.
And, I don't find this that necessary, but since many other civs are getting them too: Mission could be a good candidate for a "soft" culture bomb (as Gaul's mines have: get unclaimed tiles, but not these already owned by other civs)."""""""""
Luckily for us, Portugal is now the las Civ on NFP and so the post is technically not needed anymore.
BUT, as other people has pointed out in other threads, Portugal has taken the place of "international trader" that Spain had with "treasure fleet".
At the moment, Spain has lost both the "identities" it had: "international trade" and "religious conquest".
Therefore, with the 2/3 patch coming I will let the thread just in case anyone has new ideas!
***********
Of course, only one or 2 changes could be use, as the exercise is to Change Spain a little to make it more focused on exploration but also still have the ability to play Religious/conquest... not to make them OP.
Some points are just to make them more viable and versatile and be able to face Byzantium (on paper they are a counterbalance to them but in reality they cannot compete against them).
Some changes could be:
I) Philip:
1) add/change some exploration bonuses to Philip II.
a) XP, gold or faith bonuses when discovering Natural wonders
b) When Spain discovers a Natural Wonder gains Great Prophet points (More points if he is the first to do it, and after founding a religion) (Thanks to Jesses!).
This could improve the actual problem of Spain not having any bonus founding a religion, but also give an "exploration" bonus!
c) Unique Unit: Galleon with maybe +10 Cs on oceanic tiles or +4 Combat Strength for each adjacent Galleon.
(The galleon system and ship, basically, started with Philip II and turned famous during his period).
d) Add a bonus to "el Escorial". Spanish religious units could have the ability to cross ocean tiles. If any unit (naval, military or civilian) goes in formation with a religious unit, they can go through ocean tiles too. (Thank you CoconutTank)
This would allow Spanish to reach other continents through water early on, giving them a chance to colonize or conquest some cities there. Right now, they have a strong disadvantage to take land in other continents, as they do not have bonuses to water (even if they were the ones to reach the new continent IRL).
I think is a great idea from CoconutTank as the bonus would not be very strong:
- Early low number of religious units = few units crossing oceans).
- Wanting faith points for other purchases, not exploring
- Using the religious units for converting instead of exploring.
e) Give spanish explorers/ recon units the ability to go through oceanic tiles since the start (or after discovering a wonder or Astrology). This way, they could explore new lands, letting the Civ anticipate thebest way to colonize other continents (so they have a tiny advantages as they know what is there).
2) Make a Philip II persona only focused on Exploration.
Adding some of the bonuses stated before and maintaining the "religious" Philip.
II) Treasure Fleet:
1) Improve Intercontinental bonus:
This is a change I already made in a past post but I think could be interesting; +1 production +1 food per every continent the trader goes through (If the trader goes through trade post or cities that are in different continents it add the bonus. This way the bonus follow up with the increasing prices and is not OP as it depends on the number of continents and if you manage to do a trade line that match the requisites).
OR
+1 Yields for intercontinental trade each time you have a city in a new continent. Right now, if you find a continent bordering your capital and it is big enough you have 0 incentives to go colonize other continents.
At the contrary, for England you are rewarded for doing so, as you get more bonuses each time you colonize a new continent so it is beneficial for them to go explore for more lands.
Therefore, I think that adding yields to treasure fleet for every continent colonized could do the trick (2 continents? +1food/production; 3 continents? +2; 4 continents +3; and so on).
That would force Spain to look for more continents if it wants to take full advantages of their bonuses, just like england with the +1 trade route.
2) Add a bonus that allow Spain to make longer trade routes. This bonus would allow them to trade double distance, so 30 tiles for land and 60 for water instead of 15/30. This would allow Spain to take profit easier from their intercontinental bonus and give them a pretext to Explore other lands.
Most important, if they spawn in the center of a continet, they could reach civs/cities in other continents (depending on the map, more that 15 tiles for sure) but also allowing them to settle a second or third city in other continent and gain the bonus without having to wait for 30 turns for the trading post.
I first exposed this idea for a City state or a Great Person, but it could be nice for Spain as it would represent perfectly what happened with their trade line in Manila (Philippines). It was a trade line, without stops, from Philippines to actual Mexico!
3) Change the ability to form Armadas and Fleets and give Spain the ability to build directly the armadas and Fleets before the Seaport. Maybe with a port building that allows them to do it without being OP. That would allow them to make good use of their bonus, as it is far better to make a fleet or armada directly from the seaport (as it is faster and take much lesser resources) that to build ships 1 each time and then merge. them. The building would turn obsolete as soon as you research electricity, but that would prevent Spain being too strong on water maps.
III) Contextual and Synergic changes:*
1) Change Religious Beliefs:
a) Change "Warrior Monks" so instead of "Burial grounds", it comes with "defender of the faith". This way, Spain can chose to defend herself early (monks+ 5 cs) and still use burial grounds that is her most synergetic belief. (As other civs have very synergetic beliefs (Work ethic/Russia/Mali/etc-Crussade/Byz.), Spain is lacking one).
b) Add a Belief that affects different continents. Something based in the Holy orders that went to new continents (Jesuits, Dominicans, etc.). It could be "double religious pressure on holysites in another continent" or whatever.
2) Add a City State that have a bonus that plays with different continents.
If you like the idea, feel free to add whatever bonus you think could make Spain more of an "exploration" civ.
Also to criticize the ideas!
V) I'm adding a post made by Josephias. He has very interesting suggestions,. As they are already in their own corpus i will add them enterely whiout changin any word! That you Josephias!
"""""""However, instead of proposing an improvement based on lenght of the trade route, my proposal would require intercontinental expansion. I think this brings forward Spain's strong focus on actually settling and governing the new explored lands, by setting up specific laws, governors, administrations, etc.
Treasure fleets were huge targets because they cummulated the wealth of all the continent in a single voyage. Internal trade routes would end in Veracruz or Cartagena (de Indias), and then the fleet was assembled and sent to spain (Cadiz, Seville), were it split again to the final destinations.
This gave me the idea of increasing the bonus of treasure fleets depending on how much cities you own in the continents at the two sides of the route. (it could also be in non-home continent, but I think it balances better if you consider both sides). The "level" of the route would be the number of cities that is less in each of the two continents. So in example
- A route between a continent with 5 spanish cities and a continent with 1 spanish city would be level 1 (basic yield bonus), as one continent has just a single city
- A route between a continent with 4 spanish cities and a continent with 2 spanish cities would be level 2 (2x yield bonus)
- A route between a continent with 3 spanish cities and a continent with 3 spanish cities would be level 3 (3x yield bonus)
- An (international) trade route to a continent were Spain has not settled will lose the bonus. (0 cities, level 0, 0x yield)
This will push expain to really want to expand into different continents for increased rewards. It will be a risky strategy, but a different gameplay style and with a reward that pays the risk. Also, as you increase the trade route bonus, you could also increase the pillage yield, as suggested in Ticio's routes, to attract piracy
Loyalty issues out of a "expand in at least two different continents" strategy should be handled (as Spain did), by religion. For Spain it could be considering doubling both the loyalty bonuses for same religion. And also the loyalty maluses for different religion. Spain's zealotry was not that much a matter of piety than of asserting the king's authority, as many foreign religions practices were associated -in some cases correctly- to external threats (islam to Ottomans, protestantism to England and France, and -in the case of Charles V, I in Spain - to nobles wanting to get independence / preeminence onthe HRE). The fact you need to negate this penalty and ensure your bonus would make the inquisitor bonuses more worthwile.
You may add, as commented in the other thread, a culture bonus for cities following only Spain's religion (something similar to the +culture of the monument in fully loyal cities)
As Spain relies in religion, it makes sense to give them a GPP bonus to found one. However, as commented in the other thread, I think it not needs to be straightforward to be one of the first founders and pick beliefs, as its gameplay is not that directly religion-focused, but more indirectly. I would make them have some kind of "late religion" bonus (in the same sense Arabia gets always the last religion, but not that strict).
My first idea on the subject is giving them a boost on GPP that increases with more religions being founded (or, at least, found), linking it to the Treasure Fleet trade route gameplay, I suggested giving them a big GPP boost if trading with a civ wich already has a religion. (maybe +3 or +5 great prophet pts. per trade route). A more simpler approach (sill linked to exploration) would be to give them a GPP boost or a big lump sum of GPP each time they met a civ with a religion. That is: Spain will have no direct bonuses to start the great prophet race, but will push as it discovers there are less options to get one, in order to reach the finish line before they run out.
Last, a pair of mission changes. To help with the "focus" issue in Spain's start, mission unloc could be shifted to Teology, but only with the faith production, and maybe an additional help to missionaries and religious units (e.g., as the name implies, +1 religious charge to missionaries, and maybe to inquisitors under Philip's LUA). Missions woud still need spain to focus in exploration to shine, so I'll keep the loyalty and science bonuses locked until that civic is researched.
And, I don't find this that necessary, but since many other civs are getting them too: Mission could be a good candidate for a "soft" culture bomb (as Gaul's mines have: get unclaimed tiles, but not these already owned by other civs)."""""""""
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