England
- Thread starter Funak
- Start date
I haven't played a complete game as England with CBP yet, but so far it seems that you only get the additional spy/spies initially in the reneissance era. With each new era after that you get as much spies as everybody else. I might be wrong though, correct me if I am, or perhaps it is intentional?
You get a total amount of extra spies equal to the number of city-states divided by a number. that results in 1 extra spy on a standard map.
Oh, I see. Isn't that a little weak, though? Sure it is helpful to have that one additional spy in the reneissance era, but, as you mentioned in the initial post, in the later portions of the game you end up with so many spies no matter the civ that it makes this part of England's UA completely neglectable, imo.
I find it kinda weird that you don't get an additional eras worth of spies. With standard game-settings you get a 2 spies per era but only one for the English UA.
Ugh, I'm sorry to sound stupid, but now I'm a little confused. Are you saying that [on standard settings] for each era I am supposed to get 2 spies by default + 1 for English UA? Because I only got 3 spies initially in the reneissance era and from that point on I was getting only 2 spies per era with no additional ones in my game.
So, to clarify, my question is the following: should I be getting additional spies for every era or just initially in the reneissance era? For example, should I have 9 (3+3+3) or 7 (3+2+2) spies in the modern era on standard settings?
I think I said Total. By which I mean 3+2+2+2+2.
But I think it should have been 4+2+2+2+2 for symmetry
Alright, thanks for clarifying. In that case, though, to me it seems a little underwhelming. The idea of additional spies is really cool, but having 13 spies when everybody else has 12 in the late game doesn't make a difference. This part of English UA doesn't scale at all.
Well, that's my opinion anyway. I wrote the initial post because I thought my game was bugged or something. Apparently deep inside I wanted England to be that much badass
The new Factory is awesome, have you gotten around to trying it?
England! How's the Steam Mill? Discuss!
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Tubbilicious
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2011
- Messages
- 97
I'm currently playing as England on a YnAEMP world map with 22 Civs. England is mediocre right up until the unique bonuses kick in. Once they are online, in particular the extra spies and certainly the unique unit, you become temporarily unstoppable. I think this trade off of becoming quite powerful in the mid game for a weaker early game is fine.
With the correct planning that powerful mid game also translates in to a powerful late game, this is due to a combination of reasons. Firstly, if you did manage to secure a lot of iron and build many ships of the line, they upgrade very nicely, maintaining the double shot as a cruiser and indeed being able to fire thrice with promotions. Secondly, the steam mill also ensures that you have high production capabilities in two ways; one is through the steam mill itself, which offers higher production earlier on. Another is through the ability to use coal elsewhere, in particular for sea ports. This ensures England is able to compete productively later in the game.
I know it’s been suggested that England is over powered. In my current game I am at war with 19 of the 21 remaining Civs, and winning. I like to think that this isn’t because I’m overpowered however, but because I border only 4 problematic civs, each of which can be largely kept at bay by my navy. If modern day China was to attack the UK, one of the more important defensive factors would be that we’re on the other side of the planet, and I see no reason why that shouldn’t be a factor in CBP; the point being that while it may look ridiculous to go 1v19 and win, it’s really only 1v4 due to geographical reasons, and it’s during England’s absolute prime.
I’ll see if I can post some screen shots later on, perhaps even give a run-down of the game.
Another point to remember is that England may not perform anywhere near as well on less sea-focused maps.
As a final aside, it's almost as if naval power isn't taken in to AI considerations of strength?
Edit: I should have mentioned, this is on immortal.
With the correct planning that powerful mid game also translates in to a powerful late game, this is due to a combination of reasons. Firstly, if you did manage to secure a lot of iron and build many ships of the line, they upgrade very nicely, maintaining the double shot as a cruiser and indeed being able to fire thrice with promotions. Secondly, the steam mill also ensures that you have high production capabilities in two ways; one is through the steam mill itself, which offers higher production earlier on. Another is through the ability to use coal elsewhere, in particular for sea ports. This ensures England is able to compete productively later in the game.
I know it’s been suggested that England is over powered. In my current game I am at war with 19 of the 21 remaining Civs, and winning. I like to think that this isn’t because I’m overpowered however, but because I border only 4 problematic civs, each of which can be largely kept at bay by my navy. If modern day China was to attack the UK, one of the more important defensive factors would be that we’re on the other side of the planet, and I see no reason why that shouldn’t be a factor in CBP; the point being that while it may look ridiculous to go 1v19 and win, it’s really only 1v4 due to geographical reasons, and it’s during England’s absolute prime.
I’ll see if I can post some screen shots later on, perhaps even give a run-down of the game.
Another point to remember is that England may not perform anywhere near as well on less sea-focused maps.
As a final aside, it's almost as if naval power isn't taken in to AI considerations of strength?
Edit: I should have mentioned, this is on immortal.
Finally got around to playing an England game into the industrial era without rage-quitting
. I managed to land on a tiny island all by myself, with oceans on all sides. Figuring all other civs were in similar situations, I soldiered on. Finally got to Compass, started exploring the world and realized everyone else was on the same landmass and I was 14 techs behind .Anyways let's start with the UB, I have to say I was greatly disappointed, from all the whining I've heard I figured this thing was so overpowered that it would win matches by itself.
In reality, it isn't bad exactly, in fact it is probably one of the strongest UBs in the game but it is already the latest UB in the game, techwise, it makes sense that it is strong, really. I mean it gives you double the production/citizen of the normal factory, but honestly that doesn't really translate into a whole lot. At the time you get to this building it is going to be worth around 2 mined hills, sure that's two mined hills that you don't need to work but it really isn't anything amazing.
England doesn't really have any form of growth bias, so their cities aren't really going to grow to massive sizes. They are also war oriented which doesn't really synergize that well with growth-strategies.
The strongest part of the Steam mill is that you save coal on it, coal that you can spend on sea-ports or coal plants or whatever. I ended up having the entire worlds coal-supply on my tiny island so this wasn't really an issue for me, but I've had enough coal-less games to know what that feels like.
All in all the UB certainly is good, but I don't think it needs a nerf at all.
The Ship of the Line on the other hand, is a freak of nature. I was able to use the two iron i had available to me on my island to completely crush the tech-leader.
First of all their double attack promotion has to be changed to the normal Logistics promotion, as it is now they are able to pick up normal logistics as well and get 3 attacks per turn, which unlike chu-ko-nu and slingers, they can actually use because they have more than 2 movement points. Second, I'm a bit undecided on how to handle the rest of of the UU, I feel like the main problem is the logistics, but truth be told that's going to be a problem for any ship that gets up to logistics. So I would probably aim a nerf at the logistics promotion instead of directly at the SotL. Maybe let the naval version of logistic reduce the ranged combat strength by 20% or something like that.
Part of the reason why the SotL are so damn powerful is the same reason as why the Keshik was so damn powerful, because synergy between the UA and the UU is at its strongest at this point. SotL have so much movement that they can easily outrun anything. You can spread your ships out, and still have them be in range to reinforce each-other. The recentish nerf to logistics, so that you can't run away after attacking helps a lot with this, but movement is still crazy.
Here is the crazy part however, I think the crazy movement is fine, that's the English UA after all, it does nothing for half the game and then in the late-game you're able to dominate the oceans with your crazy speed.
I'm going to add the Logistics-thing to the combat promotions thread.
Agree re: logistics. Not sure why I used second-attack for them.
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It is actually really silly, I picked up logistics on my first unit mostly for lulz, didn't think it would do anything. But I ended up getting a third attack, which made the unit batshit insane actually, especially when combined with the English UA.
They are probably the civ with the slowest start in the game, but it isn't too bad. Technically you can do a pretty sweet dromon or galleas rush (especially if my suggested naval promotion suggestions pass).
I was thinking that it was really weird how everything naval that I have can move at the speed of sound, but my cargoships are still slow and have no range, but that's fine I guess.
TruthfulCake
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2016
- Messages
- 363
Completed a game as England recently. Forget the Longbowmen and its often ineffective range thanks to terrain features. The SotL are probably the most insane UU in the game.
Admittedly in the game I played, all the enemy capitals were coastal cities. However, I find that the unbridled power of the English navy is potentially game-breaking, considering I dominated both land AND sea using the ships alone. What happened was I finished military academy, spammed SotL which could by then be built in one or two turns (internal trade routes may have helped), conquered my whole continent, and then mass-upgraded to cruisers to take on the other continent, where civs like Babylon and Korea were about 10% ahead in literacy.
When the Battleship upgrade came, indirect fire plus the range promotion and logistics allowed me to wipe the entire land army of opposing civs (and the entire world was at war with me). This was in 3/9 where garrisoned units were immortal too. The power was such that I needed to build no new Battleships, only Destroyers, because the SotL turned Battleships have the power to wipe land armies like a normal Battleship can't.
I think that it might not have broken the game if the Ironclad line also needed iron (and the whole point of the ironclad warships was that they had iron armor anyway). Instead, the iron requirement came too late at Missile Cruiser, by which point you probably have already won the game with your Cruiser/Ironclad composition. Therefore you can have near unlimited navy in this game. The fact that naval units are stronger than land units due to mobility notwithstanding, they are not any harder to produce.
Admittedly in the game I played, all the enemy capitals were coastal cities. However, I find that the unbridled power of the English navy is potentially game-breaking, considering I dominated both land AND sea using the ships alone. What happened was I finished military academy, spammed SotL which could by then be built in one or two turns (internal trade routes may have helped), conquered my whole continent, and then mass-upgraded to cruisers to take on the other continent, where civs like Babylon and Korea were about 10% ahead in literacy.
When the Battleship upgrade came, indirect fire plus the range promotion and logistics allowed me to wipe the entire land army of opposing civs (and the entire world was at war with me). This was in 3/9 where garrisoned units were immortal too. The power was such that I needed to build no new Battleships, only Destroyers, because the SotL turned Battleships have the power to wipe land armies like a normal Battleship can't.
I think that it might not have broken the game if the Ironclad line also needed iron (and the whole point of the ironclad warships was that they had iron armor anyway). Instead, the iron requirement came too late at Missile Cruiser, by which point you probably have already won the game with your Cruiser/Ironclad composition. Therefore you can have near unlimited navy in this game. The fact that naval units are stronger than land units due to mobility notwithstanding, they are not any harder to produce.
