Should Norway be buffed?
Norway has been directly buffed twice now. Once last year, when I think it got the production bonus for melee ships (or maybe the bonus was just increased) and the Stave Church started giving production. And then a second time when Berserkers got buffed.
Norway has also been indirectly buffed a few ways, eg: spears getting added to agoge, various buffs to coastal cities, buff to raid cards, more uses for faith.
Norway is also a Civ which is sort of great because it is a little underpowered. I wouldn’t want that to change.
But for all that, Norway does feel a little too weak sometimes. Although, I go backwards and forwards on that.
Overall, I don’t think Norway needs a direct buff, but it would benefit from a few other general things being tweaked.
Specifically:
- Coastal Cities and Harbours probably still need a small (small!) buff. I’d like to see Harbours give a +2 adjacency to Industrial Zones, and maybe Coastal Cities getting a free trading post or something like that. These changes would help everyone, but particularly naval based Civs like Norway.
- Making Anti-Cav cheaper and improving the value of Military Tactics would help Norway, Japan and Georgia (and sort of also help Greece and its Hoplite).
- Allowing Civs to coastal raid without necessarily declaring war. This might be quite hard to implement with the AI, but I feel that not being able to raid in the early and mid game without declaring war really limits options for conflicts.
If Norway was buffed, I’d like to see something like this:
(1) the Stave Church no longer gives a production boost to sea resources; instead, Norway gets the same production bonus just be settling a coastal city and having researched Apprenticeship (or maybe extra faith from sea resources once it unlocks theology); and
(2) the Stave Church keeps its adjacency bonus from woods, but also provides +1 adjacency to all adjacent districts (or gains +1 adjacency from adjacent districts).
If I was going to buff, them, I think I'd give them something like a science bonus for coastal raids/pillaging. Or you could even consider giving them something like Alexander's bonus - if you coastal raid/pillage a campus or industrial zone you get a eureka, coastal raid a theatre or holy site you get an inspiration. Either way, they could turn into a civ that could do a lot of damage going around pillaging every tile they see to speed their research along, to compensate for maybe building less campuses than other civs.