[R&F] Civ of the Week: England

[Victoria]

Second, I think Sea Dog capture ability is based on combat strength. So, given the Sea Dog doesn’t get combat bonuses

This is precisely why I said a sea dog armada... so a sea dog amada capture is based on its base combat strength (no admirals allowed) but even then... it has a 17% chance of capturing a nuclear sub... also it has +1 movement and you do not want to upgrade it.... with an admiral it outspeeds everything... have you noticed the move speed of later sea units does not get faster?
Now battleships have good ranged strength but rubbishy base strength and so sea dog armadas eat them for breakfast with a 67% capture rate.... Note, it is base strength so a 90% damaged sea dog still has the same chance.

IF Civ6 had a decent seascape they would be fantastic... as it is you eat up all enemy ships in no time, have a massive navy that costs too much so you have to reduce it and end up bombarding every city within 4 tiles of a coast just like you would have done without sea dogs.

They ARE a great unit... its just the rest of naval battle is so pointless and the AI so digustingly poor (as much due to the number of possibilities and visibility, you can see the AI timeout due to navy) that it really is a joke. Navy is uber strong but so dull you may as well play checkers. You end up with ships anchored because there is nothing to do with them. sure there is a 40 turn period where theyt are interesting, after that its just pure meh.

Game over for me due to england nerfs. RNDY is down a very bad leaf node (how hard is it to discover how to build a harbour?), redcoats come late, everything else is now very mild. As I already pointed out in other threads, even ZULU's are a better naval civ FFS

Best games I have played before I gave up were pushing science to redcoats early and stomping ... it is just you are a vanilla civ until then, all your value like RNDY's is just slowing down getting to redcoats. England is not a naval civ, just a crap civ with a late punchy unit.

 

[acluewithout]

Fair enough. Good point on the Battleships too.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I can only wonder what nerfs England will receive in the next expansion.

Maybe in the modern era each city on a foreign continent will receive -25 loyalty a turn until you're left ruling an area the size of Ohio?

In all seriousness, England is just kind of a mixed bag at this point for me. The Museum is fantastic, as is the discount harbor. The red coats are great under the right circumstances. But the UU is pretty much junk. Only getting a free melee unit by settling a new city on a second continent is pretty lame, especially compared to how it used to be. And a free melee unit for RND doesn't do much if you cannot build a harbor. Considering how powerful England was, it certainly doesn't feel that powerful playing it.

EDIT: Due to being straight up wrong.

 

[Half Nelson]

I am currently playing England on a Deity TSL Earth map including AI Scotland and Germany. Very interesting start:- possibly the most challenging (if somewhat predictable) first 50 turns I have played at Civ6 due to the small number of available land tiles until Shipbuilding is researched. At turn 150 I have eliminated both these AI and captured a third AI capital using Shetland Pony power (horses galore for the British Isles on this map!?).

 

[Disgustipated]

Needing to build a harbor to get your free melee unit

Don't need to build a harbour to get the free melee unit. You get it soon as you settle a city on another continent. Building a RND gives you a 2nd melee unit. Which is almost annoying. As you'll have to move a unit since you can't fit 2 units in your city (I often combine them after corps are available), and I have so many units to pay maintenance on. In my game above I still had warriors floating around since I saw no reason to upgrade them and pay more maintenance.

I actually started another game with them. Full on warmongering this game. Archipelago with high sea levels. I actually find them more enjoyable this way. That's the strange thing about both Mapuche and England, they have abilities that help in war, but are better suited for cultural victory. Kind of annoying. As mentioned above, it can be fun for a little while, but the ineptness of the AI at naval combat takes some of the fun out of it. Sometimes I see the AI build a lot of ships, but they actually seem to build less with the latest patch. Edit: I'm starting to see more naval units now, and have a pretty good naval battle going on with Mongolia (of all civs). Not that they can stand up to me. And now another major naval war with Kongo.

Edit: and one more annoying thing about England, their UU is on a civic that is very difficult to boost for England if you are playing a water map. I don't have a single commercial hub.

 

[Archon_Wing]

So I was trying to roll a noncrap map with England.... and then it wasn't happening. I guess the civ gods have made it clear I shouldn't play them. But, here's the best one.... Emperor/Continents (I think, who really cares?)

It's really not that great but it can have a triangle (though not with the +4 harbor) and pyramids. So that's something. Actually I think starts with some desert in them is quite desirable.

Netherlands spawned right there, and took out that CS I had 1 envoy in. They also were protected by a mountain pass which made it hard (seems to happen a lot for them) and I had to burn one of their cities because I had gotten into a Dark Age.

Also, got Petra and now the city can finally make stuff and grow.... unfortunately this harbor would take too long to make and by the time I could get harbors out, most of the Golden Age was over. The sad thing is that it's already a river start so it would have been worse had it not been there. And long last the Commercial hub came into place and this is why I think triangles are so overrated.

Sadly, it's one of those maps where another continent is far away, and also Trajan has already started to settle out for some reason, despite having land on the mainland.... maybe he thinks he's England.... I take his cities and banish him to the island where I can still trade with his cities with my own colonies.

Spoiler :

Turn 170 and nobody's founded the last religion. Ok then! Good to stop Georgia's potential victory

Spoiler :

And finally we get to the museums and I remember England's good at winning already won games faster. Non-English cities that you took only hold 3 artifacts in their museums, but interestingly enough, they also auto-theme regardless of what you put in there.... I'm not sure if that's intentional but the extra speed does help once all the convenient artifacts are gone.

Spoiler :

End (With Reyna and Economic Union, we're pulling +15 from the hub and +12 from the harbor.

Spoiler :

Also despite being ahead in tech rather fast because of the Heroic Age, I still managed to lose out on Ruhr Valley. Not that it matters.

Next week, we'll be doing something just as boring, but on the other side of the spectrum.

 

[acluewithout]

So I was trying to roll a noncrap map with England.... and then it wasn't happening. I guess the civ gods have made it clear I shouldn't play them. But, here's the best one.... Emperor/Continents (I think, who really cares?)

It's really not that great but it can have a triangle (though not with the +4 harbor) and pyramids. So that's something. Actually I think starts with some desert in them is quite desirable.

Netherlands spawned right there, and took out that CS I had 1 envoy in. They also were protected by a mountain pass which made it hard (seems to happen a lot for them) and I had to burn one of their cities because I had gotten into a Dark Age.

Also, got Petra and now the city can finally make stuff and grow.... unfortunately this harbor would take too long to make and by the time I could get harbors out, most of the Golden Age was over. The sad thing is that it's already a river start so it would have been worse had it not been there. And long last the Commercial hub came into place and this is why I think triangles are so overrated.

Sadly, it's one of those maps where another continent is far away, and also Trajan has already started to settle out for some reason, despite having land on the mainland.... maybe he thinks he's England.... I take his cities and banish him to the island where I can still trade with his cities with my own colonies.

Spoiler :

Turn 170 and nobody's founded the last religion. Ok then! Good to stop Georgia's potential victory

Spoiler :

And finally we get to the museums and I remember England's good at winning already won games faster. Non-English cities that you took only hold 3 artifacts in their museums, but interestingly enough, they also auto-theme regardless of what you put in there.... I'm not sure if that's intentional but the extra speed does help once all the convenient artifacts are gone.

Spoiler :

End (With Reyna and Economic Union, we're pulling +15 from the hub and +12 from the harbor.

Spoiler :

Also despite being ahead in tech rather fast because of the Heroic Age, I still managed to lose out on Ruhr Valley. Not that it matters.

Next week, we'll be doing something just as boring, but on the other side of the spectrum.

That, sir, is comedy gold.

England’s good at winning already won games faster is the best line.

 

[Disgustipated]

this is why I think triangles are so overrated.

I tried one in my current game, problem is the commercial hug takes so long to make. RND times are of course fast. Those triangles take too long to come online.

This is my new game with Vicky. I call it fighting for Vicky. Or maybe it should be fighting with Vicky. The only victory option enabled is domination victory. I'm mostly relying on Navy, I'm leaving cities too deep in continents for later. There's something nice to the East on this map. Definitely helped my game. I actually didn't even bother to fill out this island (just 3 cities), and started pushing towards other continents. Sadly, my continent encompasses quite a few islands.

I did end up picking up a religion with her this game. For the most part I don't recommend prioritizing a religion with her, but if it happens it happens. The AI's weren't pushing religion hard this game, so it was fairly easy to pick up.

Spoiler :

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

That looks like a fun start.

 

[acluewithout]

England gets very bad starts. Not saying that should be changed, but it does company their woe.

If you’re going triangles, I’d really recommend not doing that in Vicky’s first city. You’re better having a production and science focused first city, and then grabbing coastal cities later so you can get out Builders from your cap and chop in triangles.

 

[Disgustipated]

Finished my conquest victory game. While England may not have any direct improvements to Naval warfare, I still think they are a decent naval civ. I just wish the movement bonus would carry over through promotions. Getting harbors up quick sure is handy. The money comes in handy and I could outright buy sea dogs. Of course they still also have the problem of British museums not working right in conquered (or flipped) cities, but in a way it kind of makes since. They are British museums after all. My final ranking was Augustus Caesar which may be my highest ranking for my civ of the week games, even compared to my other conquest victories where I took every AI city in the world. Oh I forgot this is a large map, that's probably why. This game worked out well. Having a nice natural wonder for my 2nd city definitely helped.

sea dog's ability really isn't that bad. The ships you capture make good units to combine to form fleets and armadas. I captured a few units. Probably could have gotten more had I waited and not destroyed naval units with my ironclads and frigates. But I just wanted to get Sparta's Navy out of the way. The AI eventually got around to building a decent number of ships my game, but of course they aren't great at naval warfare. The ai likes to explore with them, so often they are by themselves far away from defending their homeland. Rather than retire older great admirals, I can attach them to sea dog armadas instead.

This screenshot shows the combat strength of a sea dog armada. Certainly can't compare to my single battleship (which I believe was at 98 when I attacked Sparta), but certainly worth keeping around, at least until the AI has missile cruisers which will ruin your day. Battleship armadas I'm sure are scary as well. The ai in my game lagged behind in naval tech, so never got a chance to test the sea dog out against more modern units.

Spoiler :

Sparta's last stand:

Spoiler :

And are embarked units really supposed to provide a support bonus? Seems kind of cheesy, not that it mattered here.

Spoiler :

I still kind of like England. At least they are better than America.