First Look: Spain

[Siptah]

I wonder how reliable Spain is. It gets no bonus for creating a religion. We don't know how limited founding a religion is afaik. There might be a considerable chance that you won't be able to found a religion. If I understood everything correctly, that makes religious victory impossible.
Also remember that once you've conquered a lot of enemy cities with Conquistadores, you will lose the combat bonus against other religions.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Spurrious speculation based on incomplete information: Spain will be the first civ nerfed for being ridiculously OP towards a particular victory condition (religious)

That being said, I expect Arabia and Kongo to have a decent religion flavor

 

[criZp]

Sounds pretty fun, but I'm not sure early fleets will matter much? I thought the merge feature was mostly meant to reduce lategame carpets of doom.

 

[Aukhenaten]

Philip ties Cleo as my favorite design/animation combo. The expressiveness of the two is just wonderful.

 

[nitedemon]

Well there is the "mission" UI you can build to get bonus for faith

I wonder how reliable Spain is. It gets no bonus for creating a religion. We don't know how limited founding a religion is afaik. There might be a considerable chance that you won't be able to found a religion. If I understood everything correctly, that makes religious victory impossible.
Also remember that once you've conquered a lot of enemy cities with Conquistadores, you will lose the combat bonus against other religions.

 

[Siptah]

Well there is the "mission" UI you can build to get bonus for faith

Not that I'd know, but I guess you need a religion first or it is a renaissance thing. And we have seen religions being founded in ancient times.

Edit: I really like this Spain civ. I just don't think it is really OP (read: almost every other civ is OP, too)

 

[EgyptRaider]

I wonder if this could be a valid strategy for Spain: holy war on other people, capture/convert cities with conquistadors but return them at the end of the war to reduce warmonger penalty. After each war you would convert a bunch of cities of the civ to your religion, and you would go for religious victory...

Certainly, still the UU's are gated to a certain era, so there's a timeslot to when you can execute this strategy.

 

[Homusubi]

Well played, Firaxis, well played. Making it look like Spain has one leader again.

 

[Ikael]

Wow, wow, such an awesomely designed depiction of Spain! And in my birthday too boot! What a joyous day! now, let's break down Spain's abilities and playstyle:

Unique ability: Treasure fleets
Extra yields from inter-continental trade routes, can form fleets earlier than another civs.

Great ability for building continental spanning empires and colonizing abroad, I can only imagine how cool it will be the interaction with England's UA + agenda:

*Philiph colonizes another continent*
*meets Victoria*
*grudgematch ensues*

Unique Philiph II Ability: El Escorial
Units get combat bonus against players of another religion. Inquisitors remove religion an extra time.

Well, of course Philiph was going to be all about religious warfare. Predictable, yet a very cool implementation, not only with stronger inquisitors, but also with a great mix between military prowess and religion. I bet that it will also blend well with his agenda, too.

Unique Spanish unit: Conquistador
Bonus when tiled with religious unit. Converts cities upon capture if conquistador is adjacent

In one hand, the Conquistador's depiction is not too much accurate and I don't like it from a historical perspective (they were more about plundering and exploration than religious warfare), however, it is great from a game design point of view, since it makes Spain's warfare more unique and even more fused with the religion gameplay.

Unique Improvement: Mission. Provides faith.
Bonus faith when on different continent and bonus science when next to campus.

I love, LOVE this improvement. Not only it makes Spain even more adept at building wide trans-continental empires, but also reflects the whole Jesuitic education institutions left in the Americas. Good job, Firaxis!

 

[Nick31]

Certainly, still the UU's are gated to a certain era, so there's a timeslot to when you can execute this strategy.

You don't think they'll keep their UU bonus when upgraded, as happens in BNW?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Faith isn't used to spawn Great Prophets, Great Prophets Point are used, Spain gets no bonuses for that

I don't think they are that OP, because a lot of their bonuses is geared towards having a religion and spreading it. Not founding it. So on higher difficulties, it could be very impossible to get a religion to begin with.

And if you get beat to all religions, then you can still spread, but are now spreading someone elses's religion.

Also, it's only the Conquistadors that get the conversion ability, so they have a limited window to get the most out of that.

 

[Browd]

Hopefully this time thread will not be merge.

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[El Castellano]

I love how they have designed to Spain. Also they have made that Spain share the same renaissance architectural style than Brazil.

 

[nitedemon]

Makes you wonder what would Isabella's bonus be if she indeed will be added in DLC. If Isabella is also faith based too, I would kinda wish Philip II had a bonus in culture instead so that you would get a different Spain.

So, I take it's safe to say that his agenda is that he hates civs that follow other religions than his own? Because that's basically what Isabella already had in games past XD

 

[Tinker]

I wonder how reliable Spain is. It gets no bonus for creating a religion. We don't know how limited founding a religion is afaik. There might be a considerable chance that you won't be able to found a religion. If I understood everything correctly, that makes religious victory impossible.
Also remember that once you've conquered a lot of enemy cities with Conquistadores, you will lose the combat bonus against other religions.

I'm going to guess that it's always possible to found a religion, simply because the Civ series has never locked off a victory condition before. Religion in general seems much expanded, and I'm going to guess they'll do an in-depth preview of that sometime.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Conquistadors got their start during the Reconquista, where they were involved in religious warfare and forced conversion. This is accurate.

 

[shyPiano]

So, I take it's safe to say that his agenda is that he hates civs that follow other religions than his own? Because that's basically what Isabella already had in games past XD

Good point - Philip II will essentially be a male Isabella in terms of zealotry.
Which makes me question, how will they differentiate Isabella from him then?

Thanks for yet another gif!

I'd prefer they had pictured him without the armor though. He looks a bit similar to Barbarossa at first glance. A typical Renaissance attire (such as the one he's wearing under the armor) would be better for diversity's sake, methinks.

No problem! I've been doing this for all leaders so far, and the album is coming along quite nicely.

I don't really agree with you about the armor - his armor and Frederick Barbarossa's look very distinct to me. In color, in shape, in style, I find both to be very different from each other. One is clearly meant to invoke medieval suits of armors, while the other is very clearly a Renascence era armor.

What I find weirder is his suit's puffy shoulders combined with really thin arms and big hands! In his depictions in armor, he never seems to have the puffy shoulders. As they designed it, it reminds me (weirdly) of Samus Aran!

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I wonder how reliable Spain is. It gets no bonus for creating a religion. We don't know how limited founding a religion is afaik. There might be a considerable chance that you won't be able to found a religion. If I understood everything correctly, that makes religious victory impossible.
Also remember that once you've conquered a lot of enemy cities with Conquistadores, you will lose the combat bonus against other religions.

Everybody gets a pantheon. And unless I'm misunderstanding, there's no reason anyone can't found a religion if they use the Great People points to save for a Prophet. They might not grab the first Prophet (or find it desirable traits), but it appears that Prophets are available into the Renaissance and beyond.

 

[SaiH]

Sounds pretty fun, but I'm not sure early fleets will matter much? I thought the merge feature was mostly meant to reduce lategame carpets of doom.

Did anyone notice that after creating a fleet the Gold per Turn changed from -16,5 to -12,5?
So the upkeep for a fleet is lesser than the upkeep for two single units. This might matter ...

 

[Siptah]

Everybody gets a pantheon. And unless I'm misunderstanding, there's no reason anyone can't found a religion if they use the Great People points to save for a Prophet. They might not grab the first Prophet (or find it desirable traits), but it appears that Prophets are available into the Renaissance and beyond.

Prophets are available until they are all used. We've seen the "no more prophets available" screen at some point. Even if there are one per civ, there is a chance that you won't get one (especially when a religious focussed civ also builds Stonehenge)