[GS] England is horrible now

Pietato

Platonic Perfection
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Jan 9, 2014
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Workshop of the World is just so inconsequential. I think they might even be worse than Canada...

Guess Georgia tier is now England tier.
 
I think you meant past tense. They've been horrible for a while. And I also laughed when people thought Workshop of the World was going to be anything short of useless-- they nerfed England and in our faces. Basically, they just gave up on England and gave us Phoenicia. (as well as giving up on Norway and giving us Maori) And with Sweden getting a far stronger version of British Museum, it's pretty obvious they were just liquidating.

They're probably Georgia tier, but no civ is anywhere as bad as Canada. At least England has a harbor; that's pretty much all England is about.
 
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England is OKish. Strong? No. Unique? No. Just a civilization that do a little better on domination and economic, that gain little yield on the end game.

The thing is, England have small gain on many districts, but you are limited in such. Extra Coal allow to power more easily cities and gaining extra yields from Theatre Square, Campus, or Commercial Hub, but you want also to put some RNDY and even some Encampment to stockpile Iron / Coal without any of them go to waste, and use the Military Engineer. You can try to sell your strategic ressource, but selling Iron is like allowing the enemy to raze you with Knight.

The RNDY is... OKish. The whole continent-related feature is too imprevisible on Pangea, and did not kick at the good time on continent: focus on the naval tech early on and you get razed by the neighboor. Plus: the extra movement is lost on the upgrade. The Loyalty game isn't usable for England to begin with. At least the Seadog is fun, probably the only bright side... if you can engage naval warfare to begin with. Basicly, you want to conquer a city with Harbor that convert to RNDY that gain loyalty, not building it, so no gaining extra naval unit in the process with Victoria.

The extra Coal/Iron and the whole Military Engineer thing allow to have railroad, tunnel and, with RNDY, allow to gain more gold with Trade Route. Too bad that this is kicking so late, and on the opposite side of the naval tech.

Bright side: Eleonor is a lot of fun, and England allow you to play her more versatile way than France, even if not as effective.

Victoria is kind of useful on larger map with a lot of water around with extra Trade route, and the Redcoat could be amazing... if you could upgrade your Musketman into it, and upgrade it into Infantry and not wait to Mechanized Infantry. But they are a really nice units anyway. The extra-melee and naval units are... well... not worth it, just a side effect of playing. Gaining a one-time melee unit for free and then 1 naval unit if I manage to build the RNDY before the city loyalty-flip? This is the most amazing thing in the world! (sarcasm)


So I end up with with mixed feelings with England. The civilization ability is mostly economic and development on the late game with more powerfull trade route and selling the Iron / Coal but the UI want you to spread on continents, and the two leaders are either a pseudo-domination with extra Trade route, or taking advantage to cultural play and loyalty mechanic. How am I supposed to play this civilization? Have tall cities in my native continent with railroad and trade route for extra gold while having all the districts, meanwhile go wide by conquering coastal cities on others continent for extra trade route and/or play the loyalty game, and gain access to extra ressource, and guarding the coastline with the Seadogs / Redcoats? I don't know!
I will let some expert inlight us, because I don't know how to handle this civilization. For me, England have abilities with no synergy that spread out on too many paths, and kicking too late or can't even kick.
 
I really wish I could play RF England with GS Eleanor.

Victoria matches GS England a lot more than Eleanor does, but England's abilities now seem so... boring.
 
The worst part is her starts, they are appalling a lot of the time.
Continents are a joke with loyalty
The redcoats are great but quite late, they make her adom civ.
The Harbor is OK it is just the double leaf node for harbours is like they are retards at design, how can you choose not to discover harbours but then use frigates?
Her starts are the worst bit.
Not as bad as Canada & Georgia but certainly bottom.
 
I enjoy Georgia more than England... At least Tamar starts inland so she has that going for her if nothing else. The golden age thing is at least somewhat useful though far from gamebreaking since losing monumentality golden dedication for an age really slows things down.

Canada (tundra) is just as bad as coastal bias starts, but at least he gets the surprise war immunity thing... If he can walk out of the tundra and find acceptable land it's OK. England has nothing useful! (who builds IZs and encampments anyway?) I agree with OP... Put Victoria down there at the Z-tier along with Harald.
 
England is aweful. After 4 games in a row where there is no iron and it's on the far side of my opponents, what use is workshop of the world?
 
My Eleanor England game went sooooo much better than my Eleanor France game. England isn't good, but they are better than France. Granted, the map played a big part in this. But don't discount half price harbors and getting a significant gold income early in the game. It helped me out immensely.
Full disclosure: I did one restart since I wasn't on the coast my first start.
 
My Eleanor England game was very powerful, and the double iron/coal was also a LOT of money (large map 12civ) but it was very boring to sell them every turn for different civs.
It is not as good obviously as the new powerful civs, but it is fine imho.
 
double iron/coa
+1 not double. It is not a lot. You can only sell to those that do not have and those that do not have will stop buying at 50. You can get swordsmen or knights A few turns earlier, that it.
Start and map have a lot to do with success.
 
So how do people play Englaenor differently? Im reading that a lot of people like her. She's currently my vote for weakest leader. Her abilities have close to zero synergy with the rest of England's kit now that there is no additional slots or autotheming... It makes me think firaxis gave sweden autotheming quite late in development and through most of playtesting Englaenor probably still had it.
 
So how do people play Englaenor differently? Im reading that a lot of people like her. She's currently my vote for weakest leader. Her abilities have close to zero synergy with the rest of England's kit now that there is no additional slots or autotheming... It makes me think firaxis gave sweden autotheming quite late in development and through most of playtesting Englaenor probably still had it.
Eleanor's ability is pretty strong in a dom game since you can capture a city with a theater district and move works there to immediately start flipping cities. France's bonus will get you more wonders but generally in cities where Eleanor's ability is useless. Without Catherine's combat bonus France has no domination bonuses. This makes England's very small bonus to domination better than none at all.

TLDR; you'll flip more cities as Engleanor than you will as Frelanor.
 
Eleanor's ability is pretty strong in a dom game since you can capture a city with a theater district and move works there to immediately start flipping cities.

That's a fair point even though it doesn't seem particularly game changing. If you could start taking cities you can probably finish taking cities regardless of Eleanor. I'll try upping my aggressiveness meter next Elaenor game i go for and see what the results are like.

Eleanor is a lot of fun to play regardless of power level anyway. One of the earlier games I played when GS came out was 'Planet Eleanor' - small pangaea with extra civs... All of whom were Eleanor.
 
Take a city and move works to.... ah, they did not build many theatres.
The civ is crap.
Canada is worse to be fair. 1 hockey rink per starving tiny city... oooh. Tundra oil is about the only thing of value.

Bottom tier is a crowded place these days... I guess until pillaging gets fixed Harald managed to get a vacation from bottomland.

That's a fair assessment, Canada is the only civ who actively has to work against their abilities in order to succeed. The hockey/national park loop synergizes well though. If painfully slowly. I've started learning cree on deity now and... Yeah it's a lot less painful.
 
I don't think England is as bad as Georgia or Canada. Sure Workshop of the World isn't that sexy but it is more useful than other civ abilities, like Radio Orange.

I think Eleanor is certainly a better leader than Victoria. The bonuses for Pax Britannica, while useful, aren't going to come up that often. Realistically, how many different continents are you going to settle in a game? 2-3?

I'm always curious when people say Eleanor is weak. Do they not run bread & circuses with her? It helps immensely to flip cities. Yeah, it can be a pain setting up peaceful conquest (B&C project, Theater District, Amani, Spies) but it is very and easy to steamroll with careful planning.

My major problem with Canada is that if you do not start anywhere near tundra, half of what makes the Civ unique is unavailable. You cannot build ice hockey rinks, cannot take advantage of tundra farms (meh), cannot cheaply buy tundra or snow tiles, and cannot take advantage of double resource extraction from said tiles. So that leaves you with no surprise wars, double emergency bonuses, Mounties, and the tourism bonuses. I don't enjoy playing half a civilization.
 
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I think Eleanor is certainly a better leader than Victoria. The bonuses for Pax Britannica, while useful, aren't going to come up that often. Realistically, how many different continents are you going to settle in a game? 2-3?

She certainly makes it more worthwhile to settle other continents which presumably means more than normal... But having not played her much I dunno if I can comment.

if you do not start anywhere near tundra, half of what makes the Civ unique is unavailable.

With Mali as well this is a royal pain. I hope they improve the map generator...
 
I like being Eleanor of England for aggressively pushing myself on other civilizations. I feel Royal Navy Dockyard is so much more useful now that Merchant city states give their bonuses to harbor buildings too. With all my harbors, I'm getting soooo many Great Admirals, and you can have quite a few that help with Loyalty.

So here's what I do ... I build 3 districts in my cities: Royal Navy Dockyard, Theatre Square, and Holy Site (and later Water Parks). Getting my own religion's really important, because I use Moksha to buy districts. Well anyway ... so I send my settlers to found cities on another continent, and I send Moksha so I can buy a Royal Navy Dockyard, which really helps with my loyalty. And perhaps too one of those Great Admirals if I'm getting a lot of pressure. I then buy myself a Theatre Square as quickly as I can, and I'm also hoping I got Cathedrals. I send my spies to neutralize governors, and it doesn't take too long before I can start flipping cities.

I feel Moksha's a really big part, because like @Victoria says, you don't want to be stuck when you take cities and not be able to move your great works forward. Well when you can just use faith to buy districts, that really helps a ton, right?

I also try my best to become Suzerain of Cardiff, and since I'm England and building Harbors everywhere, I get lots of clean power :)
 
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