England

[LifeOfBrian]

White Tower is considerably too strong, so if changes were to be made to England, I'd start there.

 

[CrazyG]

England is the best civ IMO, at least for higher difficulties. The UA is in the top 5
Ship of the Line is a top 5 UU, logistics allows them to move after attacking which is crazy
White Tower is a top 5 UB

She is just a civ with very few flaws, who is strong basically the entire game. Even on a pure land map I'd consider her a top choice.

I don't know if we need to purge logistics from all UUs, but England ought to lose something.

 

[pineappledan]

England used to be the catch-up queen. Once she hit Navigation she would explode in power, and I think that's an important thing to preserve for England as a power curve and roleplaying mechanic. I think Ship of the Line does this well, but White Tower is ruining the power curve by keeping England too strong too consistently and too early. If something has to be nerfed I know exactly where I would make the cuts.

Options:
Push white tower back 1 tech level
lower white tower's numbers
Reduce the city defense to +5
nerf the on-empire building bonuses to 2 on armory/castle/constabulary.
Maybe drop the crown jewels entirely... Even though that was super flavorful

 

[BiteInTheMark]

England used to be the catch-up queen. Once she hit Navigation she would explode in power, and I think that's an important thing to preserve for England as a power curve and roleplaying mechanic. I think Ship of the Line does this well, but White Tower is ruining the power curve by keeping England too strong too consistently and too early. If something has to be nerfed I know exactly where I would make the cuts.

Options:
Push white tower back 1 tech level
lower white tower's numbers
Reduce the city defense to +5
nerf the on-empire building bonuses to 2 on armory/castle/constabulary.
Maybe drop the crown jewels entirely... Even though that was super flavorful

Her ability to steal techs from turn 1 alone is an insane thing. I tend to focus on production and growing buildings in the early stage and typically fall behind in techs. Easily catching up this deficit by sending a spy in a capital and get a free tech every 5-10 turns is in my eyes a bit too powerful. If I compare this UA with Ethiopias, you can steal more techs in the early game than getting techs as Ethopia in the entire game. I didnt played a game with the new england to its full length, but I agree with CrazyG, that England is atleast in human hands one of the top nations. I think playing a tall Tradition England on a huge map where you get a lot of extra spies by Statecraft and Freedom, end with a nation full of stolen GW and CS.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Yes, in human hands it's far too strong. But I've seen England consistently linger in the middle of the pack or even at the bottom in my games, perhaps not least due to consistently picking Authority and declaring an early war on a strong warmonger neighbour.

 

[CrazyG]

Before the white tower, England was an incredibly strong civ with no bonus culture, at all (which was really rare). I kind of liked that design, a bit of an Achilles heel.

 

[theMisterRud]

Tall Tradition England is one of my favorites.

I am not knowledgeable enough to propose other changes, but I want to point out that the AI should be taught to avoid London like the plague once White Tower is up. At the current state they kamikaze too many spies that give too much yields to the England player.

 

[CrazyG]

So I just started a game as England.

My spy is in Siam's capital, first tech needed 12 turns to steal. each tech after that required only 4 turns. Does that seem like, way too low?

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Yeah, I think tech stealing in general (as well as the chance of a spy getting caught which is too low) is OP

 

[pineappledan]

Maybe the base tech stealing rate needs to be lengthened, and then Constabulary/police station/Intelligence Agency need to have their rates reduced?

Or maybe levels need to not affect speed quite so much?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Maybe the base tech stealing rate needs to be lengthened, and then Constabulary/police station/Intelligence Agency need to have their rates reduced?

Or maybe levels need to not affect speed quite so much?

I think the base lenght is a bit too short, atleast for England.
Something I didnt read that much from others is using spies as GW thieves. I need in most times longer to find a city with a great work than to steal one, and the success rate seems for me, even with normal civs, like 95%.
With England, its even much easier, cause you can send one spy to a CS and all others swarms out. If the target city didnt have a GW, they have enough time to pick a CS and rigg an election there. Then repeat everything with other cities.

 

[CrazyG]

Bumping. England is way OP, she's one my favorite to play but the spy is too much. Meet a CS, get a faith or culture ally, then move to a capital for a free tech every 4 turns. The early game is a joke, I can't even fall behind to make a glorious comeback with the ship of the line.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I wanted to start a thread discussing how ridiculous the turn 1 spy and how game winning it is even without stealing a single tech, seriously if there is one civ i think it needs a nerf it's gonna be England.... it's not even close to any of the other top tier civ in terms of consistency, power level with the ability to spike and make come backs.
Also SOTL makes the rest of UUs a joke in combination with the extra movement from the UA .... starting with logistics proved to be dangerous and the land counterparts Chu-Ku-Nu and Slinger got that promotion swapped for another one; it becomes obsolete only when battle ship comes online, from compass in the renaissance era till electronics in the atomic era, even after you unlock cruisers it's way more effective to produce SOTL and upgrade them than producing vanilla cruisers.

 

[TranceBlossom]

Also SOTL makes the rest of UUs a joke in combination with the extra movement from the UA .... starting with logistics proved to be dangerous and the land counterparts Chu-Ku-Nu and Slinger got that promotion swapped for another one; it becomes obsolete only when battle ship comes online, from compass in the renaissance era till electronics in the atomic era, even after you unlock cruisers it's way more effective to produce SOTL and upgrade them than producing vanilla cruisers.

Holy run-on sentence, batman

The bolded part is true for many UUs so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there.
The UU may be powerful, but the real balance issue is hands-down her UA. I have no idea how to balance starting with a spy; being able to ally city states and steal techs from Turn 1 is crazy. You could remove the +1 movement for ships and spies being 1 level more powerful and she'd still probably be top tier.

 

[CrazyG]

I think the balance issue is the UA, and the UB, and maybe the UU too. Like she's just the best civ. I win the game before I even get the white tower, but if I accidentally did nothing with spy, I could probably win again at white tower (those yields for killing spies are crazy).

Ship of the Line can at least have issues with arsenals, but frigates not needing iron was a massive buff. In terms of strength vs the core unit, SoL might be the best UU.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

With England, I neglect my early game Science and just keep up with Tech Stealing. This let's me focus elsewhere. I put huge emphasis on Production as I know my SOTL's will gain me a huge advantage in Renaissance.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

With England, I neglect my early game Science and just keep up with Tech Stealing. This let's me focus elsewhere. I put huge emphasis on Production as I know my SOTL's will gain me a huge advantage in Renaissance.

Yes, I do the same, no need to focus on science buildings. Simply researching the top of the tech tree while stealing all bottom techs from the warmongers. Theoretically, this could be also the UA of China, nobody would think it would fit to England.

 

[Pier]

Theoretically, this could be also the UA of China, nobody would think it would fit to England.

China has only been "stealing technology" since Nixon opened up the trade relationships.
Actually, for a large part of its history, China was surrounded by civilizations not as advanced, which really made them think they were gods. Little did they know that a continent on the other side of the landmass was quickly evolving from a backwater feudal society into the dominant player in the world stage for centuries to come.

England, on the other hand, has always been a rather untrustworthy ally to any continental country, especially after they fully secured Great Britain. For a long period they had to choose between an army and a navy, and choose the navy, so they were happily to blockade, while the continental allies were doing the fighting. They also were masters in abusing internal politics in the independent countries that soon would become their colonies. Also, their spying and code breaking efforts in WW2 are well documented, and you can see the tremendous amount of money and effort they put into it. Finally: Brexit.

No, Perfidious Albion is a really original UA for a country with a wealth of history to choose from.

Back to game balance: would it possible to have your spies be less efficient (like a constabulary, Bletchley Park, or the policy Empiricism (rationalism) does) until you build the White Tower?
With Cultural Revolution (Order ideology) your spy steal rate becomes more effective. I assume you can therefore make a global penalty on your tech stealing rate as well.
This would slow you down a bit in the early stage, while you become the true spy master in the second part of the game. White Tower can still be nerfed a bit.

 

[kenneth1221]

Back to game balance: would it possible to have your spies be less efficient (like a constabulary, Bletchley Park, or the policy Empiricism (rationalism) does) until you build the White Tower?
With Cultural Revolution (Order ideology) your spy steal rate becomes more effective. I assume you can therefore make a global penalty on your tech stealing rate as well.
This would slow you down a bit in the early stage, while you become the true spy master in the second part of the game. White Tower can still be nerfed a bit.

If we were going in this direction, I would prefer it to scale form -50% rate in Ancient Era to 0% in Renaissance, when everyone else brings theirs online. Locking it behind a building seems harsh.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

England, on the other hand, has always been a rather untrustworthy ally to any continental country, especially after they fully secured Great Britain. For a long period they had to choose between an army and a navy, and choose the navy, so they were happily to blockade, while the continental allies were doing the fighting. They also were masters in abusing internal politics in the independent countries that soon would become their colonies. Also, their spying and code breaking efforts in WW2 are well documented, and you can see the tremendous amount of money and effort they put into it. Finally: Brexit.

Perfidious Albion is based around diplomatic behavior, but not around stealing technologies or Great Works.
The british royality was excellent in playing smaller kingdoms against each other and finally make them vassals, annexing them later on. Also in setting small, primitive nations under pressure by having a much more advanced army and especially navy, letting them surrender without firing a shot.
I think, the ability to bring CS under your influence by spies or puppet city states by military pressure like Mongolias UA would fit the definition and the historic context of England much more than beeing able to steal technologies. Ive suggested a change towards this, when the discussion about changing England happened, but it wasnt picked up.

If you don't want to change too much, I would recommend to either remove the ancient era spy and add one more spy to the White Tower, denying England beeing ahead in tech even without a council in the early game, or add bonuses for spies only in relation with CS, but not for stealing technologies and Great Works.

Personally I would like to have an ancient era spy which enables me to get fast one or two CS allies in ancient/classical, than having more techs as even early science civs like Babylon or Ethiopia.