[R&F] First Look: Robert the Bruce | Scotland

[ferretbacon]

The crucial question, of course, is this: What will the requirements be for the inevitable "Highlander" themed achievement? Kill the last unit in Los Angeles v Teddy, or pillage a Kurgan v Scythia? The mind wanders.....

If you're referring to the Highlander film, the entire modern portion of the film was set in New York. What does Los Angeles have to do with anything?

 

[Lord Lakely]

Bannockburn is stronger than it appears. The bonus isn't around liberating cities, I mean, who cares. What is great is that it allows you to double your production in every city whenever an AI snags a city state near you. This is great for building up districts, recruiting settlers or building wonders. War Weariness? Build a gold course to get an extra amenity. The Golf Course also stimulates you to build Entertainment Complexes or Water Parks in most of your cities, making them happier, increasing their science and production even more.

It's not the strongest ability ever, but it's not weak.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Dunno if there's a significant difference in the two shades of blue for them to be distinguishable enough, guess that's up for the devs to figure out. After all, I thought the same of Greece and Portugal back before they announced the latter for BNW.

I think there is. Of course I can easily distinguish between England and Gorgo's colors too, even though they are similar. England and Poland is similar as well.

 

[Sagax]

I can tolerate yet another Declare War -> get temporary buff LUA....for now. However, if Shaka’s LUA is also based around this theme then I’ll probably start rolling my eyes.

Good thing that it’s the only fly in the ointment. The rest seems good, even if some elements seem cheesy.

 

[pgm123]

It's an ally's city, not a city-state. And it's not like you need to take it back. Just keep spamming the war. This seems abusable.

I guess. I can't remember if I've ever had the Liberation CB available to me. I guess I could plan around it by friending a losing civ far away and just using the production bonus.

I can tolerate yet another Declare War -> get temporary buff LUA....for now. However, if Shaka’s LUA is also based around this theme then I’ll probably start rolling my eyes.

I really think Arabia needs an alternative leader with a Holy War CB bonus (and hopefully a boost when they found a religion).

 

[blackcatatonic]

I don't see why Portugal couldn't have red and green as per their flag?

 

[ferretbacon]

I assume his agenda will have something to do with disliking civs that conquer city states and/or allied cities?

 

[Amrunril]

Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled
Scots whom Bruce hath often led
Welcome tae your, um golf course?

This definitely isn't what I was expecting for Scotland, but it does at least make for a mechanically cohesive civ, one that's primarily focused on internal, amenity boosted science and production but that can use rough terrain bonuses and wars of liberation to make life miserable for anyone who tries to mess with them.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

I like them. Even more. Besides The Dutch and Cree, they are my favorites in this expansion so far. And those bagpipes... damn so cool

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Opinions:

1) Scotland is better than the disgraceful Celtic blob civ
2) Emblem: Scottish Thistle in Blue and White. This is good
3) UA: This is very powerful I think
4) LUA: It's deceptively powerful. Liberation garners no warmonger penalty and you don't actually have to liberate anything. Just declare war, make peace after 10 turns, repeat
5) UU: It's not something you will be making a ton of, but if you can manage to keep a few Scouts around to upgrade, they will supplement your forces nicely
6) UI: kind of corny but appropriate. It seems like it will be useful for synergy with the UA
7) Stirling. They should really have chosen Scone.

 

[BenZL43]

Calling all CivFanatics of Scottish heritage!

I hope you can enlighten us what's the connection between Robert and wooden stool.

 

[Returning Lurker]

It’s times like this where I wish this site was ever so slightly less uptight about swearing, for the only way I can really articulate my discontent with the civ selection in this expansion is with language unbecoming. I don’t hate Scotland, but when it’s Scotland and Georgia and Mapuche and Korea (Who I personally consider a cynical marketing move due to the large potential audience of the country even though I know many would disagree) all crowding out the ones that should have been given base game slots in the first place... Chandragupta is now pretty much the only reason this expansion is still worth it to me.

 

[Magil]

I assume his agenda will have something to do with disliking civs that conquer city states and/or allied cities?

According to the PCGamesN text article, his agenda is Flower of Scotland. He does not like civs picking on his neighbours, will never do so himself, and will like you if you're not at war with them.

 

[pgm123]

The more that I think about the golf course, the more I realize that it's very appropriate.

 

[Lord Xavius]

I don't see why Portugal couldn't have red and green as per their flag?

The red and green flag is a post-monarchy thing, so having those colors represent a Portugal under any of its kings or queens would be a bit odd (IV did it, sure, but now colors are generally more keyed to leaders).

 

[criZp]

As for those saying it will be easy to game the system with the scottish LUA, then I think it's safe to say such exploit will be patched, assuming it isn't already.

 

[drubell]

Well the Highlander is pretty likely to be never be built. In order to get into Rifling you need to tech past field cannons, and if you have any interest at all with using ranged units, you'll likely be using those instead with better promotions to boot. I have never upgraded scouts to Rangers and the extra bonus strength doesn't change my mind. I imagine that's been the same for anyone who's played Civ 6. Furthermore, the Rifling Tech branches away from where the Science and Industry buildings are. Yuck.

Golf Course giving 2 gold and some culture AND amenities is not bad at all. That's a lot of potential gold to pick up, reminiscent of Civ 5 trading posts. Of course it also lends into the unique ability as well. Overall a better unique improvement than most, especially if you want to spam the Golf Courses around for more gold because you don't want to raise your actual population too much (or else it'll affect your amenities).

The unique ability somewhat discourages war as well because the war weariness would negatively affect his Happy/Ecstatic city bonuses. Although, the War of Liberation will definitely help to deal with any war weariness accrued from attacking cities through that War of Liberation.

You can get a lot of Great People not just through the amenities, but also through having Cultural Alliances which boost your Great People points through trade routes (and you will want to have alliances for the change to use the War of Liberation if that's available). That's a lot of Great Scientists and Engineers on the board.

So yeah Scotland is definitely a great contender for a Science or Cultural Victory, and peaceful expansion and diplomacy definitely has a lot of synergy with his abilities. Overall a good civ.

Edit- That said, getting extra science through amenities is nice, but you can also get extra science (and better science) by taking cities. Scotland could be very threatening as a high-level AI, but as a player civ, I'm curious if I'd be satisfied with my attempt to do a Science Victory as a peacemonger.

 

[bite]

From Ed: Flower of Scotland: Will not attack neighbors unless they break a promise to him. Likes those who do not war with neighbors, dislikes those who do.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I don't see why Portugal couldn't have red and green as per their flag?

Green on red is used by the Ottoman Janissaries in Jadwiga's scenario. I'm assuming they would save that for them. Also red on green would have to go to Ethiopia.

 

[Vahnstad]

Nice leader animation, nice colour/city-names, nice music, nice leader agenda but boring abilities and improvement.

Maybe the golf course isn't that bad (just a bit lame maybe), but that ability is so disappointing.