Civs, which lack personality

[pzelda]

Hey,
playing with mods I found one big issue returning to official civs. They often lack any personality or an interesting playstyle. My favourite civ is Polynesia because it changes the game completely and brings a different experience. But some civs are lacking this distinction. Here are some examples:

Denmark: This civ sucks imo. It got 2 uus, which are both replecement for swords and ua is an army wide promotion, which makes you less endangered, while attacking over water, but there's no focus on navy. It doesn't feel like neither denmark nor vikings. It works well with the scenaria, but it's boring in a full-scale game.

America: Again a very bland identity. This might be caused by the scale of the civ. 2 UUs are boring again. UA is not the best in the game, but it at least represents colonization nicely.

ERA and Carthage: I think that two UUs are wasted potential. Their UAs are not bad (flavour-wise) and they're quite elegant mechanically, but in combination with UUs there's no distinct way to play them. I would enjoy them much more with just one war oriented UU.

Ottoman: They UA has less synergy than Japanese or Mongolian. It makes sense from a historical point of view but it doesn't build up a strategy based on its UUs.

Indonesia: This civ is so random. All its specials are interesting on their own and situational. The problem is that you're not very likely to use all of them in one game as they don't match well together.

 

[Equilin]

I don't really see a problem in there tho. Nothing says you have to use all of a civ's unique assets in a game. Also regarding 2UU civs, say that to Attila and see how he responds lol.
On Denmark: I've tried messing around with their UA for some time, like wasting a turn embarking then in the next turn disembark several tiles further with bigger movement in water. Also two UUs in the same category means it upgrades to another while retaining all the promotions, this is the only civ in the game to get this.
On America: They got nerfed in the design process from what i have heard. The initial design is too OP (I suppose the ability to walk over river was for them and why it is in the code) and got a huge nerf. And actually plane UUs are boring because the AI don't really use it at least in my games.
Ottoman: I think they tried to present how these Turks fare well both on land and sea, try the ItR scenario to get more out of them. In the base game sadly, but for me that sad part applies to all Renaissance+ UUs.
On Indo: Again, you don't really need to use all of them.

 

[pzelda]

That's a good point about denmark, but it doesn't make the game with them funner for me. Yeah, probably a civ I'll never play as again.
Thanks for the tip, I'll play the scenario soon.

 

[BlackWizard]

Not true about denmark and promotions. When berserker is upgraded it loses one extra movement promotion which sucks big time. If it would keep that promotion it would be nice.

 

[lindsay40k]

Portugal.

It feels weird to level this criticism, as the super trade routes are both characterful and make them really good.

But the Feitoria is redundant on a civ that generates loads of money with which to buy out City-States, and often not worth the upkeep and pathfinding micromanagement on the worker you have to babysit.

The Nau would be really good if there were a Civ 4 style bonus for circumnavigation; as it is, it's competing with the Privateer, which doesn't need to go on a voyage to get a bonus promotion, and I'd much rather have the prize ships ability on my melee craft.

 

[Scribls]

@lindsay40k The thing that makes the Nau really cool in my opinion is not as a privateer replacement (it replaces the Caravel after all) but as a production to gold conversion. I think a lot of people make the mistake of trying to maximize the exotic goods bonus rather than just popping over to the nearest city and taking the minimum and then coming back to your city and disbanding them for gold or gifting them for influence (arsenal of democracy mostly).

I had a game where a secondary city could create them in two turns and basically start a train where I was generating ~50 gpt at a time when my city had no critical infrastructure to build. I would build a unit on one turn, and then sell goods the next, and then disband the unit the following turn. It was really powerful in my opinion and let me build up a massive amount of gold to buy Public Schools and Research Labs in all of my cities as well as setting up Spaceship parts and allowing me to bribe AI into declaring war on one another to keep my trade routes safe. Circumnavigation would be a cool perk and would probably make distant good sales a better bet - if you did it for a long enough time you could obviously set up a longer train for your build/sell/disband train but you have to pay maintenance on the units which undercuts the benefit.

In regards to the question at hand - I think Denmark is boring for the player because Berserkers are hard to use on higher difficulties and Ski Infantry don't have relevant bonuses. Carthage is the most boring to play in my opinion. I wish they got free harbors AND a unique harbor instead of the Quinquereme. Give them a unique harbor called a "Cothon" that buffs city connection gold (+10% maybe?) and gives sea units +15 XP to support a wide seafaring military civ.

 

[lindsay40k]

See, I get that the Nau has its uses, but setting up a stream of long-distance cargo ships to pop next door and then be dismantled just makes it feel even less of a Portuguese flavour. It’s like farming XP to get a load of range logistics crossbows - a really powerful exploit that feels more like sorcery than statecraft

 

[Scribls]

@lindsay40k I get that aspect for sure. I would definitely agree it isn't interesting from a historical flavor perspective or anything like that. I like it purely as a gameplay mechanic though to make the civ play a little different.