England

[saamohod]

I admit I didn't read the whole thread therefore I might say something which has been discussed a lot, or debunked.
Still...
Did anyone ever see AI England win a game (or at least stay among the top scorers)? My observation is they perform very poorly in any of my games, be it a game I participate in or an observation game.

 

[Txurce]

I admit I didn't read the whole thread therefore I might say something which has been discussed a lot, or debunked.
Still...
Did anyone ever see AI England win a game (or at least stay among the top scorers)? My observation is they perform very poorly in any of my games, be it a game I participate in or an observation game.

Gazebo said no civ consistently performs poorly.

 

[peterw1987]

I admit I didn't read the whole thread therefore I might say something which has been discussed a lot, or debunked.
Still...
Did anyone ever see AI England win a game (or at least stay among the top scorers)? My observation is they perform very poorly in any of my games, be it a game I participate in or an observation game.

Well, england strong point is naval combat,which large scale naval combat rarely happened, and AI sucks at it. The UB is ultra late. Another is spy, which i cant figure out how effective it is. Sure if you have 5star potential city to spy on, it is effectively free tech every each turn.

 

[Txurce]

England has been nerfed twice lately. First, the spy doesn't steal as much in the early game. Second, logistics has been nerfed across the board. That said, see post #142.

 

[ElliotS]

So what buff do we give England? I vote give them +2 movement instead of +1 and restore their spy's previous stealing speed. That or give their spies double advanced action speed, but that seems like it would amplify the cancer and be ultra-unfun to play against.

Alternative would be to give pre-gunpowder archer-line units the range promotion as part of their UA.

 

[Txurce]

So what buff do we give England? I vote give them +2 movement instead of +1 and restore their spy's previous stealing speed. That or give their spies double advanced action speed, but that seems like it would amplify the cancer and be ultra-unfun to play against.

Alternative would be to give pre-gunpowder archer-line units the range promotion as part of their UA.

I'm against a never-ending round of buffs in principle, but that aside, England doesn't strike me as notably UP. On the other hand, I recall that their spies were nerfed because a couple of people complained that they didn't like playing against England. I thought that was irrelevant, and also believe that a strong spy is part of what makes England fun to play. So I would like to see its former rate restored -- not as buff, but as a reversal of an unfun and unnecessary nerf.

 

[ElliotS]

I'm against a never-ending round of buffs in principle, but that aside, England doesn't strike me as notably UP. On the other hand, I recall that their spies were nerfed because a couple of people complained that they didn't like playing against England. I thought that was irrelevant, and also believe that a strong spy is part of what makes England fun to play. So I would like to see its former rate restored -- not as buff, but as a reversal of an unfun and unnecessary nerf.

It's not never-ending. We just nerfed Denmark. If G says it's underperforming and players think it's underpowered then it needs a buff.

 

[Txurce]

It's not never-ending. We just nerfed Denmark. If G says it's underperforming and players think it's underpowered then it needs a buff.

1. It's never-ending.

2. Gazebo thinks it needs a buff?

 

[CrazyG]

It's not never-ending. We just nerfed Denmark. If G says it's underperforming and players think it's underpowered then it needs a buff.

Denmark lasting that long being that broken is odd though

England has fallen victim to power creep I think. And power creep is never ending, Txurce has a point.

But it would be fair to give the Unique Unit another point of RCS or CS to compensate logistics.

 

[Gazebo]

Well, england strong point is naval combat,which large scale naval combat rarely happened, and AI sucks at it. The UB is ultra late. Another is spy, which i cant figure out how effective it is. Sure if you have 5star potential city to spy on, it is effectively free tech every each turn.

1. It's never-ending.

2. Gazebo thinks it needs a buff?

England does fine. I've seen her crush fools multiple, times, especially on island-heavy maps.

Well, england strong point is naval combat,which large scale naval combat rarely happened, and AI sucks at it. The UB is ultra late. Another is spy, which i cant figure out how effective it is. Sure if you have 5star potential city to spy on, it is effectively free tech every each turn.

The AI really doesn't suck at naval combat. I've seen the AI mount massive coordinated naval assaults. England does her best.

Denmark lasting that long being that broken is odd though

England has fallen victim to power creep I think. And power creep is never ending, Txurce has a point.

But it would be fair to give the Unique Unit another point of RCS or CS to compensate logistics.

Keep in mind that logistics carries over. So all post-SotL ships are very potent.

G

 

[Dawnpromise]

Personally I've never had any interest in playing England in VP. The spies may be effective but they're not fun to play against and it's hard to keep them useful while keeping them from being frustrating.

 

[tu_79]

Personally I've never had any interest in playing England in VP. The spies may be effective but they're not fun to play against and it's hard to keep them useful while keeping them from being frustrating.

One way to not play against England is playing England. Just saying.

 

[Dawnpromise]

One way to not play against England is playing England. Just saying.

Or just declare war and wipe them out, if there isn't an ocean between you then you're usually at a massive advantage, any city not on the coast is easy game when fighting England.

I'm pretty sure even the AI gets tired of putting up with Elizabeth's spying real fast as if I don't wipe her out someone else will.

 

[Mad Madigan]

Just chiming in regarding England's current state as of the 3-7 patch.

Finishing up a game with both Denmark, England, and myself (as Shoshone) starting on a continent together (along with Siam and the Ottomans) and things went... very interestingly. Somehow, England managed to not endlessly piss off the other AI civs with her spying and actually managed to maintain DoFs with the other Civs in a coordinated effort to keep Denmark's warmongering under control. Through some stroke of luck, neither England nor Denmark settled cities with any Iron resources within their boarders, so Denmark was unable to produce any Bezerkers and England was unable to produce SotL, and lacking their UUs both Civs maintained mid-grade Civ scores through the whole game. England remained peaceful nearly the entire game until I was able to coordinate a final 4v1 war in the early Industrial to finally wipe Denmark out, but before that Denmark somehow managed to maintain just good enough relations with Siam and England to discourage all out war earlier.

England's constant spying from the very beginning was annoying to be sure, but I was able to found a religion first and picked Mandirs to cut back the damage she could do. Spreading my religion across the entire continent (and thus providing everyone with Mandirs) likely contributed to the other civs not turning on Elizabeth sooner. Once England got to Industrial and could produce their UB they started doing better, but never rose into the top 3-4 Civs before the game ended. All in all I think England is fine as long as you're playing on a map type where naval combat becomes a decisive factor and Elizabeth can secure enough Iron to fill the ocean with SotLs, Cruisers, and Battleships. Not too weak, not too overpowering; just usually pretty annoying if you're playing against them, but then again that's mostly historically accurate...

 

[HalfEmptyMug]

So, with all the naval changes recently, does anyone have any thoughts on the Ship of the Line? As someone who didn't care for them before, I approve of their Mongol like capability now, but I imagine Logistics is a bit too powerful of a promotion to start with (not to mention with the possible policy/wonder synergies). Might it be better to remove Logistics, give a slight buff to Strength, and give it either a Great Admiral combat bonus (similar to the Hakkapeliitta) or Splash Damage? Splash Damage might be more difficult for the AI early on, but either promotion would remain valuable when carried over.

 

[Gokudo01]

So, with all the naval changes recently, does anyone have any thoughts on the Ship of the Line? As someone who didn't care for them before, I approve of their Mongol like capability now, but I imagine Logistics is a bit too powerful of a promotion to start with (not to mention with the possible policy/wonder synergies). Might it be better to remove Logistics, give a slight buff to Strength, and give it either a Great Admiral combat bonus (similar to the Hakkapeliitta) or Splash Damage? Splash Samage might be more difficult for the AI early on, but either promotion would remain valuable when carried over.

no, I feel it's fine as it is.
AI : england rarely perform well in my game.Elisabeth gets lots of enemies because, like portugal and france, her behavior is a little too aggressive for a civs which have only got spies until ship of line. The UB is even later.
Human : I feel like late game UU should give a huge powerspike. if it's not the case, civs with early uu will always feel better. Moreover England is FAR AWAY from being a top tier civs, why should we nerf it ?

Nerf india, poland, china, celt etc ... before average civs

 

[CrazyG]

If anything the ship of the line should probably get buffed back to have the same strength as a frigate. What made them so crazy before was that logistics let them move after attacking, but now every ranged ship can

 

[Txurce]

If anything the ship of the line should probably get buffed back to have the same strength as a frigate. What made them so crazy before was that logistics let them move after attacking, but now every ranged ship can

This is more like it. England is actually on an extended nerfing streak.

 

[saamohod]

England is FAR AWAY from being a top tier civs, why should we nerf it ?

This.

 

[HalfEmptyMug]

AI : england rarely perform well in my game.Elisabeth gets lots of enemies because, like portugal and france, her behavior is a little too aggressive for a civs which have only got spies until ship of line. The UB is even later.
Human : I feel like late game UU should give a huge powerspike. if it's not the case, civs with early uu will always feel better. Moreover England is FAR AWAY from being a top tier civs, why should we nerf it ?

I've noticed the same with Elizabeth, and I agree that they should have a power spike, but I'm not sure the AI can use Logistics to its full potential (managing siege trains).

If anything the ship of the line should probably get buffed back to have the same strength as a frigate. What made them so crazy before was that logistics let them move after attacking, but now every ranged ship can

This is more like it. England is actually on an extended nerfing streak.

Well indirectly they got a pretty big buff now that the SotL no longer requires Iron and can attack twice and still move away, plus some added spy synergy with Statecraft. I don't think they're in too bad of a place, but removing the logistics penalty would likely make them too powerful in the hands of humans while the AI does marginally better.

I did a little bit of testing since I haven't played a game as England recently. Say you have a coastal city with 2 adjacent coastal tiles - assuming you have some space to move and you don't mind ending your turn next to the city, you can probably consistently attack twice with 10 SotL. With Bombardment 3, you can attack a city with the equivalent strength of nearly 20 Frigates with Bombardment 2, which is something I would never expect the AI to pull off. With Cruisers, even more can attack a single target. Remove the penalty from Logistics, and you simply get a 2:1 ratio with equivalent promotions.

When I said it seemed like logistics was too powerful, I meant more in terms of the player vs the AI. I don't want a nerf as I think Elizabeth can now really start to dominate the seas; what I had in mind is that if the AI isn't handling the mix of logistics and the new movement system well that their strength be shifted, since I would expect them to now have Mongol like performance.