Civ Discussion - Britain

[bengalryan9]

Next up as we continue our discussion of modern age civs are the British. The Brits are a DLC civilization that are economic and expansionist. They’re actually the first civ I’ve seen in doing all these writeups that has no starting bias whatsoever, and their associated wonder is Battersea Power Station which gives +4 production and a free second naval unit any time you train one. They can be unlocked by playing as the Romans or Normans, by choosing either Ada Lovelace or Benjamin Franklin as your leader, or by having two fleet commanders.

Their unique ability is Workshop of the World, which gives +25% gold towards purchasing buildings and +25% production towards constructing buildings, but makes it cost +50% gold to convert towns to cities.
Their unique military unit is the Revenge, a dreadnaught replacement that deals 25% splash damage to units adjacent to the target.
Their unique civilian unit is the Antiquarian, an explorer replacement that gives +20 culture for every tile away from your capital it is when excavating artifacts.
Their unique buildings are the Royal Exchange (base +5 gold, with bonus gold for adjacent quarters and wonders) and the Manufactory (base +5 production, with bonus production for adjacent wonders and bonus production AND gold for adjacent navigable rivers), which together form the unique quarter the Financial Centre, which gives +2 gold and +2 science for every connected settlement.

British civics:
Pax Brittanica – unlocks the Royal Exchange, gives +3 production to settlements for every factory resource assigned to them, and at mastery unlocks the Manufactory and Battersea Power Station
Society of Antiquaries – unlocks the Proceedings tradition and gives +1 movement to civilian units
Chartered Companies – unlocks the East India Company tradition and gives +1 resource capacity in settlements with a port
Splendid Isolation – unlocks the No Eternal Allies tradition, gives +1 settlement limit, and gives +3 CS to all units if you have 0 or positives gold per turn at the start of your turn

British traditions:
Proceedings – cities with both a great work and a resource slotted receive +4 culture and +4 science
East India Company - +3 gold on each building in towns
No Eternal Allies - +10% food and gold in towns, but -5% gold in the capital for every alliance

Thoughts on the Brits? Strong, weak, or just right? Any parts of their kit you like in particular, or anything else you’d like to see changed? Favorite strategies when playing as them? Which leaders or other civs do you think pair well with them? How many posts will there be complaining about the Revenge unit and it’s historical accuracy or unit graphic? Share your opinions!

 

[stealth_nsk]

More gold is great, cheaper building purchase is great. In another game I'd say Antiquarian as British unique unit emphasis colonialism too much, but with the exploration age implemented as it is, this unit looks just at the same level.

 

[Leucarum]

I think Britain is supposed to be a Civ which can really leverage a wide settlement of towns... The general scaling is off by such a margin that this doesn't really manifest. But it's a nice idea for Britain.

I mostly found though that you wouldn't want to pick them unless you get the economic golden age in exploration and that's an RNG coin-toss.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think Britain is supposed to be a Civ which can really leverage a wide settlement of towns... The general scaling is off by such a margin that this doesn't really manifest. But it's a nice idea for Britain.

I mostly found though that you wouldn't want to pick them unless you get the economic golden age in exploration and that's an RNG coin-toss.

I always get economic golden age in exploration if I play Songhai, and with current maps almost never without them. So it's totally not random for me.

But overall I think it's just a good decision to make. If you manage to get economic golden age in exploration, select Britain, if not, choose some other civ.

 

[bengalryan9]

I've never really been super impressed with the Brits. Workshop of the World has benefits but could actually end up costing you money in the long term depending on how you play (though as pointed out, if you get an exploration age golden age you can really do a lot to negate the penalty). I like the splash damage on the Revenge unit but I'm not really waging a lot of naval wars that late in the game personally, and I'm also not training a bunch of naval units which makes Battersea Power Station pretty weak as well(plus it's super easy to build as anyone anyways, the AI doesn't care about it). The Antiquarian can net you a lot of culture (with some luck) but I don't know if that's necessarily a huge game changer. Buildings and unique quarter or OK but I'd rather have America's. Traditions aren't super exciting, either.

I guess I view the Brits like I view someone like the Normans - they're fine, and I'm pretty much always going to have them unlocked, but they don't exactly excite me in any real way so they're almost always going to be at the bottom of my list of preferences.

 

[uppi]

I guess I view the Brits like I view someone like the Normans - they're fine, and I'm pretty much always going to have them unlocked, but they don't exactly excite me in any real way so they're almost always going to be at the bottom of my list of preferences.

The Normans are much more exciting than the Brits!

The Revenge is nice, but in the Modern age most of my commanders will have splash damage anyway, so it does not change too much. And it is not like the AI has an answer to a dreadnought fleet bombarding them anyway. One nice bonus, which I am not sure is intended, it that it (and also the Mikasa) have 5 movement instead of the usual 3.
Antiquarian is decent, might get you an artifact earlier and some culture and it is basically free, since you will be doing that anyway
The gold bonus on Workshop of the World is like 2.5 gold resources, so won't matter much. Maybe in a game where you don't have any gold. There production bonus can actually be helpful.
Their unique buildings are ok, but nothing you will really notice.

Their traditions are too little, too late, nothing exciting.

So all in all, decent enough that I would play them once in a while, but more for the variety than their actual bonuses.

The Battersea Power Station only works when you produce a ship, not when you buy it. But I tend to buy my ships (especially with a civ like Britain), so it does not really help me

 

[Menocchio]

What a weird civ, in my honest opinion. They aren't bad, but I'd argue their biggest mechanical stumble was coming out in the same DLC pack as Carthage. Both do the thing of emphasising the capital over other settlements, but where Carthage makes you play around with the game's systems, Britain just doesn't. I wonder though how much of their relative blandness is attributable to the civ itself, and how much is the fault of Modern being the 11pm news of the three ages.

 

[j51]

They’re soooooo boring. Please firaxis redo them or somebody make a mod with more imaginative gameplay.

 

[disjointaccount]

I just posted in the last thread how a lot of my modern games have been leaning on generalist civs to hit all th win conditions for maximising leader XP, and as such I ran America a lot of the time. In the games I didn't run America, I was probably running Britain. Easy unlock + lots of gold generation means they can be pushed in pretty much any direction you need. Not particularly unqiue or defined by strength in any one area, but very consistent. Revenge is fantastic too.

 

[madeirabhoy]

They’re soooooo boring. Please firaxis redo them or somebody make a mod with more imaginative gameplay.

ideally spin it off as England (as that is what it is) and create a separate Scotland.

 

[pjotroos]

It's a very underwhelming, very beige take for the first appearance of Great Britain in the series.

Most of their bonuses are minor, can't feel increments. The discounts similarly get swallowed up with all the gold & silver you unlock at this point. Modern Civs need something that makes them feel unique to play, and Britain doesn't have it.

Worse, the kit is very incoherent. A gold district, a unique navy unit, and an archeologist replacement that needs to spend lots of turns walking to do anything of use.

And honestly, I just don't get their wonder. I've travelled past Battersea Power Station without realising what I'm travelling past, there's 100 other buildings more spectacular in London alone. And the effect only works for production, not buying, which makes it at least one era late. If I need navy in modern age, I will buy the navy where I need it. I will not build a wonder in order to get a partial refund on that production for any ship I build after. And circling back to the back of the paragraph, what does a power station even have to do with navy? If it was Tower Bridge instead, it would still be underwhelming, but at least a little less incoherent - and the first navigatable river wonder, which would make it one cool thing about them.

They're not bad, really, but they are both tematically incoherent and underwhelming in what they try to do. The only reason I'd pick them is if I want my capital to be called "London", but not in all caps.

 

[uppi]

Having just played another game with them, I have to say that their abilities fit decently for an empire with many towns which feed back to a few core cities. The extra gold and the production rebate on buildings really helps building infrastructure quickly to let the yields explode.

But the design is hampered by the fact that they have only one good tradition (East India Company) and it comes quite late. Usually too late to really make a difference. No Eternal Allies is decent at least, but also comes very late and Proceedings is just garbage.

 

[j51]

ideally spin it off as England (as that is what it is) and create a separate Scotland.

No that’s terrible idea for modern. They are united in that era. An exploration Scotland would be cool though.

I think Britain needs to adopt more “Scottish” characteristics: update the city list first, center their gameplay more around science and engineering (replace the antiquarian with a great person for that), and include more abilities related to naval dominance. That aspect of their kit feels uncharacteristically light.

 

[Siptah]

The idea of GPs that are (partly) also (better) explorers is great. It would also allow a different take on the modern culture start: instead of rushing to hegemony, it might allow to go British civics first and then recruit a bunch of GPs that can excavate.

 

[Kev1916]

ideally spin it off as England (as that is what it is) and create a separate Scotland.

That would work , and very realistic as the way things are going a modern Scottish nation is on the cards.
Bonus fir 2K as they could sell another 3 civs