Civ VI Civs - Failing in Uniqueness

[dunkleosteus]

It's been a while since I've played Civ 5, so I'm pretty foggy on the details, but since this is comparing the uniqueness of Civ 6 to 5, I want to see which civs jump out as having something unique that the others didn't. Being better at something doesn't count, I'm trying to look at civs which could do something others couldn't.

The huns had their battering ram which alone wasn't that different but because warriors upgraded into it (I think that wasn't a mod I had), a good goodie hut pop early on could lead to a fast capital snipe early on.
Polynesia had their ocean crossing mechanic which was cool.
The Danish could disembark for free.
The Iroquois had their forest roads
Did Songhai get river roads? That might have been CPP/vox populi.
The Zulus had the impi and buffalo promotions. Those were pretty cool.
Carthage got mountain crossing, right?
Byzantium got an extra belief I believe, and it allowed them to get a second pantheon I think.
Rome's legions had the ability to build forts and roads, in addition to their insane strength.
The Maya had that weird Calendar thing going on.
The inca got cool hill bonuses.
Venice was obviously incredibly unique.
Shoshone got extra territory and could pick their reward from goodie huts.
Most of Greece's bonuses in Civ 5 weren't that unique, but one thing that is rarely mentioned was that Greek units didn't get relationship penalties for walking through city states, including non-allies.
The Aztecs got something about lakes with their floating gardens. I don't remember what, but lakes were pretty bad otherwise.
Japan's units didn't lose strength when they lost health.
Spain's wonder thing and conquistadors which could settle cities. Afaik, they were the only unit other than settlers which could do that, and being a melee unit would have made them fantastic, except the Civ 5 meta basically made settling more than 4 cities a bad idea and waiting until knight and ocean-crossing tech to build your 4th city was bad as well. In Civ 5, a combat unit that could settle cities would be very strong.

Don't forget those amazing Norwegian ski infantry units that could glide across the tundra for eternity!

More things I remember after looking them up: Moai were cool. Austria could royal marry with city states. Brazil had Carnivals and Brazilwood camps, an improvement for Jungle. Germany could recruit barbarians. Indonesia got unique luxuries. Ottomans had a similar ability to germany, but for ships. Pictish warriors were kind of interesting; they gave faith for defeated enemies. Mostly I liked them because they had bronze swords. Dromons were the only ranged boat available in their era, so that sort of counts. Kris swordsman were all sorts of weird. African Forest Elephants got the feared elephant promotion, which is cool. Samurai could create fishing boats.

Things I don't consider "unique": units like the longbowman and Ship of the Line, which were just slightly stronger/faster/higher ranged versions of normal units. Bonuses like Poland's which just gives you free policies isn't that unique, you're just better at a basic part of the game.

 

[Night Hike]

Don't forget those amazing Norwegian ski infantry units that could glide across the tundra for eternity!

 

[Havendish]

How do you like this one ?

Civilization: Turkey

Leader: Ataturk

Leader Bonuses
Public Sovereignty: Leaves a good first impression on every leader. Can change policies anytime without paying gold if the government is a classical republic, merchant republic or democracy. Foreign religious units initiate mutual migration of people with different beliefs and the followers of the religion they belong to instead of spreading religion to Turkey, only potentially helping with the spread of religious pressure. After the discovery of nationalism, receives the great general Mustafa Kemal. Mustafa Kemal also delivers +3 science and +2 culture bonus to the Turkish city he is on a tile of while Turkey is not in a war.

Leader Agenda
Kemalism: Strives to be in the newest era among the civilizations. Likes peaceful civilizations who never invaded Turkey. Does not give up on a tile that was once inside Turkey.

Civilization Ability
Nomadic Origins: Units can move inside the borders of other civilizations without open borders as peaceful visitors(without declaring a war and removing citizens from tiles or changing terrain features...) until the discovery of nationalism. War weariness does not increase for battles fought within borders or cities that were once yours. While a military unit of a warmongering enemy is inside the borders of Turkey and within 10 turns of losing a city, Turkey gets +50% production bonus towards military units.

Unique Tile Improvement
Village Institutes: Provides +2 Food. Can be built anywhere a farm can be built if it also does not have an appeal above uninviting. When next to a campus, theater square, industrial zone, commercial hub or harbor, and/or neighbourhood or aqueduct, receives the adjacency bonuses +1 science, culture, production, gold, and/or housing respectively.

Unique Building
Parliament: Becomes available after the discovery of political philosophy and provides double the amount of everything a palace provides. The government must be a classical republic, merchant republic or democracy for it to be built. When built, the palace becomes obsolete and the capital becomes where parliament is. Costs 150 production and does not require maintenance.

Unique Unit
Nusret: Turkish unique industrial era naval unit. Requires steam power research to be completed. Carries a naval mine that can be mined on or removed from water tiles using a full turn. Nusret can also go to a Turkish or ally city to replenish with a new naval mine. Turkish units except Nusrets and allies can not enter those tiles and the mines can not be seen by units of the countries who are not allies. There is a small chance that the units won’t hit the mine and the mine does a varying degree of damage between destroying the whole unit and reducing 20 health points when they are hit. (Let's say an expected damage value of 50 health for each susceptible unit entering the water tile with a mine) 5 movement points, 40 melee strength, 380 production base cost, 6 gold base maintenance cost. Upgrades to destroyer.

Music: March of Izmir
(Sth like

)

Very well done, except, Janissaries are the unit most desired (by majority of players) to be included with the Ottomans/Turkey in Civ. I guess Janissary could be Ataturk's Leader Unique Unit, similar to America having 2 unique units, 1 as per the civ and the other made available thanks to its great leader.

 

[Thormodr]

Don't forget those amazing Norwegian ski infantry units that could glide across the tundra for eternity!

That was cool. ^^

Oh and seeing as this is your first post, welcome to the forums!

 

[Goliht]

I liked the byzantium burny boats and those horsemen knights they got.

 

[Havendish]

Another example of how unique the Russian Civilization could play out in the game.

Civ Specific Advantages and Disadvantages for RUSSIA (the civ, not counting in the Leader abilities and agenda)

Russian Specific Unique Advantages:

- Cold Climate Dwellers- Grants Bonus Food, Production (possibly commerce too) from all cold weather tiles (tundra...)
- Religious - bonus for faith producing buildings/units
- Defense of the Motherland - declares instant Mobilization when in war, causing all production in cities to be shifted to military means with additional production boost - due to citizen patriotism and further boosted by the level of loyalty
- Kossaks - Unit Mounted Land Unit - replaces Cavalry, stronger on attack
- Lavra - Unique District/Building - provides faith and loyalty
- Krepost - Unique Building - provides culture (and possibly a military or a land grab bonus)
- USSR - Unique Ideology - boosts loyalty and production once Communism is discovered (if Communism is a discoverable technology)
- T34 - Unique Unit - replaces tank (more powerful than a tank) - available for production only if the Russian Government is Communist (or if Lenin is the Russian Great Leader)
- Grand Embassy - establishes a spy network in another civ - not sure how this would work
- Hermitage - Unique National Wonder - boosts Culture
- Bolshoy Theatre - culture boosting Unique Building
- Kremlin - unique infrastructure - boosts city defense

Disadvantages for the Russian Civ:

- Smuta - famine that kills off a portion of the population in all cities - whenever going into a Dark Age
- Russian Revolution - whenever government changes take place after Communism is discovered this event might occur once during the course of the game.
Causes a Civil War, basically a big time trouble for the human player. Half of the Russian cities declare independence and have to be conquered back into the empire.

 

[Havendish]

The issue I have with that set of bonuses is that is FORCES Egypt to play the same way every game - build Pyramids and other ancient wonders. Forced to play in the same terrain, etc.

It would be really fun - once.

I think they are really doing a nice job with the civs and have provided lots of interesting civs for everyone. I've even seen someone post that they only play religious victories and always play with a handful of the religious civs. Not my thing (or most others either) but I'm glad there is something for everyone.

Most civs have 2 or 3 areas of focus for their abilities - sometimes you can use one, another game two, and once in a while you hit the jackpot and all the civs bonuses come into play. It makes for much more variety.

I'd disagree on the - once - part of your statement.

The way I propose it, Egypt would always feel different and... Egyptian, whenever you played as an Egyptian Leader/Civ. It wouldn't be fun only once at all, instead, it would feel much more flavorfull and distinctly Egyptian every time you played as Egypt, and that's the way it should be.

 

[moors]

Very well done, except, Janissaries are the unit most desired (by majority of players) to be included with the Ottomans/Turkey in Civ. I guess Janissary could be Ataturk's Leader Unique Unit, similar to America having 2 unique units, 1 as per the civ and the other made available thanks to its great leader.

Thanks. Sure, Janissaries could be a nice addition; but it wouldn't be consistent with history for Turkey because they were active between 1363-1826 and Turkey started its War of Independence in 1919. I thought of Kuva-yi Milliye as gunpowder units using hit and run tactics but it wouldn't be very unique after all:

Kuva-yi Milliye: Turkish unique industrial era unit. Requires military science research to be completed. Attacking does not cost a movement point and can move after attacking. 2 movement points, 50 melee strength, 60 ranged strength, 1 range. 340 production base cost and 5 gold base maintenance cost. Upgrades to rocket artillery.

Anyway, I asked 2K to consider adding it and they responded with this:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact 2K Support

We really appreciate you taking the time, both to reach out to us and for sharing Civilization ideas with us for Civilization VI!

We are sorry to have to disappoint anyone who has put time and effort into creating a game idea, but it is our policy not to accept unsolicited ideas from the public. There are several reasons for this, including the potential legal issues involved. Our R&D department is currently not accepting submissions.

If you have any other questions or concerns related to 2K titles, don’t hesitate to contact us again; we’re happy to assist you further!

Apologies for any inconvenience."

I guess all we can do is to mod if we want a certain civilization in the game

 

[Cagarustus]

And that’s why there are mods: to resolve any legal issues around unsolicited ideas.

 

[Morningcalm]

As suggested by some of the posts above, civs with drastically different approaches to war and peace might be interesting. And I would beg Firaxis to make resource bonus Civ abilities less frequent.

No one remembers what mines or other Nubia gets bonus resources for, but everyone remembers that they get bonus XP and production for archers. At least one can remember the archer bonus more easily.

 

[steveg700]

Thanks. Sure, Janissaries could be a nice addition; but it wouldn't be consistent with history for Turkey because they were active between 1363-1826 and Turkey started its War of Independence in 1919. I thought of Kuva-yi Milliye as gunpowder units using hit and run tactics but it wouldn't be very unique after all:

Kuva-yi Milliye: Turkish unique industrial era unit. Requires military science research to be completed. Attacking does not cost a movement point and can move after attacking. 2 movement points, 50 melee strength, 60 ranged strength, 1 range. 340 production base cost and 5 gold base maintenance cost. Upgrades to rocket artillery.

Anyway, I asked 2K to consider adding it and they responded with this:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact 2K Support

We really appreciate you taking the time, both to reach out to us and for sharing Civilization ideas with us for Civilization VI!

We are sorry to have to disappoint anyone who has put time and effort into creating a game idea, but it is our policy not to accept unsolicited ideas from the public. There are several reasons for this, including the potential legal issues involved. Our R&D department is currently not accepting submissions.

If you have any other questions or concerns related to 2K titles, don’t hesitate to contact us again; we’re happy to assist you further!

Apologies for any inconvenience."

I guess all we can do is to mod if we want a certain civilization in the game

They may not accept suggestions, but they do read the forums and I think they've been "inspired" by ideas presented more than once.

 

[Kyro]

This has become a hot topic as new Civs are revealed for the R&F expansion, but it has been an issue for me since the initial release. I have always felt that this collection of Civs is lacking in unique approaches to game play / unique advantages. Lacking in...flavor.

(Disclaimer: my views on Civ design might be more extreme than most. Excited to see who agrees / disagrees and why.)

There are some big, awesome exceptions in my eyes. Australia, Indonesia, Arabia. Civs that encourage different approaches, that give you an advantage that other Civs don't have (ideally, in my opinion, this advantage should not be specific to just one win type).

The problem is that for every Indonesia there are like three Americas (zzzz). What happened to my Inca, who could dance freely along the hills with no movement penalties? And Isabella, whose entire advantage was dependent on the luck of finding a wonder? I want extreme differences between each Civ, even if they aren't perfectly balanced. I would play as America if each one of its government card slots were converted to a wildcard for the whole game. I would play as Egypt if they had an insane, non-era based wonder production boost (as it once was), granting me a real shot at certain wonders even on Deity. I even miss the Iroquois' weird ability from Civ V to connect cities via forest tiles! I had fun trying to make them work even though they were baaaad. Right now there are just way too many Civs that I don't want to play as.

The key word, if I'm remembering my game design principles, is asynchronous game play, and though this could cause balance issues among the Civs, I think you could adjust for this by giving Civs some unique disadvantages as well (when appropriate).

Firaxis said recently that they are not afraid to go back and make changes to past Civs, and that got me excited -- that we might end up with a higher percentage of fun Civs. Alas, the changes are just small tweaks, and the new Civs are falling into the same patterns. I think we are all a little tired of adjacency bonuses, unique units with combat bonuses (but that don't do anything actually unique), and cassus belli advantages which require us to depend on or exploit a currently weird diplomacy system. I see so much more potential.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. Maybe I'll make a mod someday.

P.S. Firaxis, I love you.

You seem to have some background in game design so I'll get more technical here. I'll have to establish some background knowledge so pardon the wordiness.

Designers understand that in all games, power balance is of utmost importance because all games at the end of the day boil down to power struggles, be it obstacles, puzzles or combat. Game play also revolves around meaningful choices, and in order for a choice to be considered meaningful, there must be freedom in making those choices. In order for there to be a freedom in making a choice, there must be power behind that choice, within the rules of the game. If I told you to choose between $10 or $100 and I told you the goal is to be richer, is there really a freedom behind that choice and without that freedom is that really choice?

In other words, there are predefined wrong things to do, such as jumping down a cliff or running into a trap which is part of the rules, and built on top of that are, depending on the type of game, multiple options a player can choose to solve one problem or accomplish a goal.

It is important at this stage to recognize that the choice to jump down a cliff is not in the same category as the options a player may choose to accomplish a goal. A player can choose within the circumstances which are the rules, but a player may not choose to ignore the rules and then say there's no choice in the game. Free will is not defined as the ability to circumvent rules but the ability to exercise choice within rules.

Linking it to the topic at hand, Civilization is a decision-intensive game, meaning the power to make choices is of utmost importance and because of that the balance of power is also of utmost importance or else those choices become purely arbitrary.
On the topic of the "Uniqueness" of Civilization, you mentioned asynchronous game play. Ideally, yes it would be great if all Civilizations were truly unique in as many ways as possible instead of being more similar than not. In this respect I agree with you that all Civilizations aren't truly unique.

A perfect example of asynchronous game play is Starcraft/Warcraft/Command and Conquer. In those games, each faction or "Civilization" is truly unique in that they have completely different play styles, units and buildings although they all have the same goal: Destroy your opponent. In these games, although there is such uniqueness, the balance of power is quite even.

The reason why it is extremely difficult to accomplish the same state in Civilization is primarily because of power balance. In fact, "could cause balance issues" is an understatement, it will cause huge balance issues. As mentioned before because freedom to choose is important, power balance is equally important and the moment you lose that power balance all decisions start becoming arbitrary and boring because there is no longer any meaning behind those choices, as defined by the game within the context of victory/rules. The reason why balancing will be so difficult is as follows:

1: Complexity. It is difficult enough to balance symmetrical game play with minimal complexity. That in itself is a feat that can take years. What happens when you try to balance a complex game such as Civilization and introduce asynchronous game play at the same time?

Starcraft itself is a complex game that is far simpler than Civilization in its depth of mechanics and objectives of the game. Yet Starcraft, after decades of existence is still being balanced to this day because of the sheer difficulty of balancing complexity and asynchronous play simultaneously.

2: Time. Balancing takes years for some games, there's simply no time to balance such a type of uniqueness on top of complexity and different victory conditions unless Firaxis decides to stick with very similar mechanics for all iterations of Civilization.

In conclusion, the simplest reason why such a Uniqueness isn't feasible in Civ 6 is because the Developers value power balance over uniqueness.

However, despite saying that, they have a huge issue concerning the power balance of strategies even now and I am tempted to say that since imbalance is already a state that they can't seem to fix, why not just go a step further and introduce asynchronous game play.

 

[Siptah]

However, despite saying that, they have a huge issue concerning the power balance of strategies even now and I am tempted to say that since imbalance is already a state that they can't seem to fix, why not go a step further and introduce asynchronous game play.

Exactly that is what I wish for.
I want to mention that I don't think balance is of the same importance for games like Civ and StarCraft. StarCraft was even at release a game in which Multiplayer was important, so the balancing the factions was a major concern. Civ is mostly played in single player, and it doesn't matter that much if your civ is over- or underpowered against the AI. The pragmatic solution for competitive civ players seems to ban certain civs to make it more balanced - which seemed to work ok for civ V and vanilla civ VI. The DLC civs, of which many are very good, made it more difficult though.

 

[Kyro]

Exactly that is what I wish for.
I want to mention that I don't think balance is of the same importance for games like Civ and StarCraft. StarCraft was even at release a game in which Multiplayer was important, so the balancing the factions was a major concern. Civ is mostly played in single player, and it doesn't matter that much if your civ is over- or underpowered against the AI. The pragmatic solution for competitive civ players seems to ban certain civs to make it more balanced - which seemed to work ok for civ V and vanilla civ VI. The DLC civs, of which many are very good, made it more difficult though.

Well here's the misconception many people have, that Balance is only an issue in multiplayer games, primarily because more people complain it. That is to some extent true in terms of real-life consequences imposed if developers don't do something about it , but not so if we examine it based on why balance is important in the first place.

There are multiple contexts which power balance can take place but just because it is not that important in one context it doesn't mean the whole concept is irrelevant in the game; quite the opposite in fact.

There is the player vs player context when balance becomes an issue and then people start complaining about it. In this context just because nobody complains about it doesn't mean the balance is not important because it still affects the experience of the game.

There is a choice vs choice/strategy vs strategy context when players have to make meaningful decisions, taking into account opportunity costs that adds to the depth of the game play. When there is no power balance here, decisions become arbitrary and the game ceases to be interesting in the context of choice. Civilization is at the end of the day a decision-based game with clear objectives and that makes the variety of choices important. This aspect of balance we simply cannot ignore.

At the end of the day you can choose to ignore these imbalances and play it the way you like, but that's just ignoring the problem by pretending it doesn't exist and no player should have to lie to themselves that they're making the best decision in context of the game objectives.

 

[Siptah]

At the end of the day you can choose to ignore these imbalances and play it the way you like, but that's just ignoring the problem by pretending it doesn't exist and no player should have to lie to themselves that they're making the best decision in context of the game objectives.

Or I can be very aware of imbalances, choose to play underpowered strategies nonetheless, and have lots of fun. I don‘t have to pretend or ignore things and certainly don‘t have to lie. Yours are a bunch of really strange conclusions in my opinion. Sad if they are true for you, since it might ruin the game. They don‘t apply to me to that degree (and haven‘t in decades of playing). Lucky me, I guess.

 

[Victoria]

I could not agree less with the OP.

If you play an agressive game then you will not see that much personality because you just get on and kill.

Lots of the unique bonuses make the civs play differently, play to turn 150 on deity and look at each civ, they are fairly consistent in the civs approach, once you have played enough games you know which civs roughly will do what throughout the game and they are quite different.

Secondary agendas are designed to spice it up and stop a civ being too repeatable because it can also be seen as watering down uniqueness while what is is really doing is creating more variety, stopping them being so fixed.

I loaded last nights deity where I got too chummy with Gilga and looking at T197 the game is about to end, I have lost to a Gilga SV with Kongo close behind powering away with a CV. Indonesia amd Trajan had a huge punchup on the other continent and while it is now bright red with ships sailing everywhere she is too far behind in science to be a real threat.

These civs do feel unique to me and donact fairly consistently despite secondaries, the issue is warmonger And RV types just never quite have enough programming to stand out as they should on continental maps.

 

[Kyro]

Or I can be very aware of imbalances, choose to play underpowered strategies nonetheless, and have lots of fun. I don‘t have to pretend or ignore things and certainly don‘t have to lie. Yours are a bunch of really strange conclusions in my opinion. Sad if they are true for you, since it might ruin the game. They don‘t apply to me to that degree (and haven‘t in decades of playing). Lucky me, I guess.

I never said you can't have fun utilizing under-powered strategies. What I have said is that you must undermine the game's objective of victory when you do so and the problem immediately becomes apparent when you face an equally skilled opponent.

In other words, you must convince yourself that victory is not that important in order to have fun that way. And if victory is not so important to you, of course balance is not important because the two are directly related. Can you truly say you are not undermining the game's objective by knowing what is most efficient and not doing it?

Don't get me wrong I'm not against having fun that way, I do it all the time because like you I value fun more than victory.

But my point is, why do players have to choose between the objective of the game and having fun? Why has that become mutually exclusive? The fact that you claim it doesn't bother you means you have in fact believed this: That efficiency is not of paramount importance. (which I totally agree by the way) My question to you then is this: How does the game support that "efficiency" is not that important? Is not Civilization structured as a race against time?

 

[Siptah]

How does the game support that "efficiency" is not that important? Is not Civilization structured as a race against time?

By making the late game a tiresome thing and encouraging to not play until victory? Not that it is intended.

 

[Kyro]

By making the late game a tiresome thing and encouraging to not play until victory? Not that it is intended.

Well that means that the game for all intends and purposes does prioritize efficiency in the context of victory, and so long as victory is important to players balance will be important. Unless Civ 6 somehow replaces the victory conditions such that faster is not always paramount for victory, efficiency will remove meaningful choices in the game if the power balance between strategies is not maintained.

I would like to be efficient and not sacrifice the game objective to do it. That and people making blanket statements on how the game should be narrowly played for "skilled" players because they have the turn time to prove it is really toxic.

 

[bdp612]

The reason why it is extremely difficult to accomplish the same state in Civilization is primarily because of power balance. In fact, "could cause balance issues" is an understatement, it will cause huge balance issues. As mentioned before because freedom to choose is important, power balance is equally important and the moment you lose that power balance all decisions start becoming arbitrary and boring because there is no longer any meaning behind those choices, as defined by the game within the context of victory/rules. The reason why balancing will be so difficult is as follows:

Thanks for the awesome reply. If the term "asynchronous game play" has to mean stark differences between each Civ, approaching the level of the different races in StarCraft, then it's not the term I should use. Is it fair to say the most extreme case of unique play style in Civ is Venice from Civ V? I don't believe you could/should make each Civ nearly that extreme in its uniqueness, not at all, but it would be nice if more Civs had a unique, global ability.

All government cards are wildcards, a big wonder production boost (maybe instead of the typical X% boost, you start with 2-3 historically relevant Great Engineers that you can use to snipe a few wonders), a Civ for each sub-optimal terrain, a Civ with no movement penalties for hills and another for forests, a Civ that gets two encampments per city (even if their attacks/defenses have to be made a little weaker for balance), far more unique units that allow you to perform unique actions (like how the new Spec Ops unit introduces the element of killing civilian units even when guarded), more improvements that go beyond providing yields (imagine if the Great Wall damaged units or made them use all of their movement points to cross it while also giving more defensive points), a Civ that can build districts on mountain tiles, a Civ with the ability to annex/puppet a city state (like with Austria's Diplomatic Marriage), a Civ with a unique and powerful eighth Governor, a Japanese re-do where the Governors are Shoguns and have unique effects on their troops, troop production, or city defense, a Civ with a unique age in which the Civ has a massive boost but everyone knows it's coming, a Civ with a one-time in-game tag-team-style leader switch (Trung Sisters??), a Civ where its cultural great people (artists, musicians, etc.) can be sent to drastically sway a city's loyalty or add many envoys to a city state, a one-city-only Civ where the tiles go out 5 spaces instead of 3 and you can build more than one of each district type (along with any other boosts that would make them viable), a Civ where your spies in enemy cities have a chance of converting a unit that's in production to your side, a Civ where emergency rewards are doubled or tripled...I could go on and on.

I don't mean for the thread to become about ability idea generation, but these kind of funky, flavorful, unique, global niche abilities are what I wish there were more of (there are some great examples in Civ VI, I just want many more). Though some of my off-the-cuff examples here might not work, to me they are not so deeply asynchronous that they couldn't be balanced, and they are not so different in their impacts than Arabia's auto-religion, or at the extreme, Scythia's magic double horse powers. Civ VI has a lot of great small abilities too, that could bolster a unique but not-that-powerful Civ ability. Like an Iroquois Civ that has the the wood roads ability from Civ V (one of my favorite abilities for some reason), but has enough of a boost towards internal trade routes that it makes them on par with a wonder-boosting Civ, for example. As others have pointed out, there are ways to make Civs have inherent disadvantages too (Kongo, Venice).