pineappledan
Deity
We have been talking about Germany a lot lately in the Leader Balance thread. I wanted to gauged community interest in some changes to the UA and UU.
Germany came up in 4 different users' bottom 3 for civ designs, so it seems there is at least some agreement that Germany as it exists now is a bit lackluster.
UA - Realpolitik
+3 Science per Friendly City-State and +3 Culture per Allied City-State, scaling with Era. Gain Science and Culture, scaling with Era, and Influence with all City-States for each World Congress Resolution you help pass or defeat.
Advantages
We propose to make the Landsknecht the main UU of Germany again.
A new unit -- the Free Company (on the left) -- will take the Landsknecht's current position as the Authority Finisher melee unit available at Steel (purely a cosmetic change; no gameplay impact for the new Free Company unit)
Landsknecht would then be turned into a Tercio unit, with some new unit models that add harquebusiers and Zweihanders to the original halberdiers (unit on the right).
UU - Landsknecht (replaces Tercio)
Unlocked at Guilds (1 tech earlier than Gunpowder)
280 Production (down from 300)
Unit maintenance cost per turn increased by 1
25 CS
2 Moves
Formation I
Formation II
Doppelsöldner (+30% CS when attacking a unit with full health)
Has no Purchase Cooldown
Can move immediately and has full XP when Purchased (like a Mercenary Unit)
Advantages:
Moderator Action: Changed last poll choice to "I dislike the new Landsknecht proposal, but I don't like the Panzer either" (was "I like", clearly a typo). - Recursive
Germany came up in 4 different users' bottom 3 for civ designs, so it seems there is at least some agreement that Germany as it exists now is a bit lackluster.
Spoiler Perceived issues with the German UA :
- Overall it is a fairly weak UA, not highly interactive, and compares badly to Austria.
- There are only 2 civs that get extra World Congress votes in their UA, and they both happen to be culturally Germanic. It is strange that both civs are so similar in this and other respects.
- Austria potentially gets an extra vote per Diplomatic Marriage while Germany gets 0.33 per ally. It is immediately apparent that Germany's UA is weaker by comparison
- Add to this that Germany's extra votes are non-permanent, conditional on maintaining allied status. In contrast, Austria's extra votes are permanent
- In addition to getting fewer votes, Germany's UA also does not help you maintain allied status while Austria's UA helps you in 2 separate ways: freezing influence decay and doubling influence from quests.
- The UA does not live up to "Realpolitik" as an idea
- Realpolitik is synonymous with pragmatism, but this is not reflected by any change in playstyle for Germany; they are only concerned with getting as many CS allies as possible, which is the standard diplomatic victory style with no additional triggers, mechanics, or incentives.
- If anything, Austria is more effective at playing a pragmatic diplomatic game, because her UA ability allows Austria to lose diplomatic allies without losing her extra vote. Austria can cut her losses if there is stiff competition for the favor of certain city-states. Meanwhile, Germany has to compete for city-states in the same way, and with the same tools as any other civ.
- It gives Golden Age Points for no readily apparent reason.
- Germany is not in any other respect a golden age-focused civ. It gets no additional bonuses for triggering golden ages, or any synergy with more frequent golden ages.
Spoiler Perceived issues with the German Panzer UU :
- The Panzer comes too late
- The probability of Germany falling too far behind to come back or being eliminated completely by the time their UU comes out is higher than for any other civ. All civs start on equal footing on turn 1. The gap between score leaders widens with each era and all other civs have their UU unlocked at least 1 full era before the Panzer.
- The 'fix' for this issue is that the Panzer has been made so powerful in its era that subduing Germany before Modern is a typical counter to their kit. This means that the greatest counter to Germany's UU is to deny them the use of it. This impoverishes the game overall, because the possibility of seeing and fighting against a diversity of units is more enjoyable than fighting a potentiality of a strong future unit.
- The Panzer is active during the same time as the ideology units, which are functionally UUs as well. So this means Germany is the only civ whose UU is competing for oxygen with ideology UUs.
- The Panzer kinda sucks
- So first off, even the civilopedia article for the Panzer UU cops to the reality that German tanks in WWII were pretty rubbish. Their arms and armour were weak, they were a nightmare to repair and maintain, and a whole host of other issues both on the production side and in the field. If Germany is to have 1 unique unit to represent its long and illustrious military history, it probably shouldn't be one that everyone softly agrees is actually pretty bad.
- The Panzer is non-specific. The civilopedia article goes even farther, and is evasive about which specific design the Panzer UU even represents, preferring to emphasize the Germans' combined arms tactics and generals (if you're curious, the unit model is of a Tiger I heavy tank). This is the only UU from later eras that doesn't specifically name the unit's design; it would be equivalent to calling the Zero a Sentoki (the Japanese word for fighter plane).
- Tanks are so late that VP moved the Panzer to Ballistics in the Modern Era. The Modern Era is equivalent to WWI, so this makes the Panzer an anachronism in its unlock spot. It also makes the Landship only 1 tech line sooner, meaning Germany effectively skips the landship entirely.
- Lastly, the in-game panzer has next-to-nothing to do with real-world Panzers. They get Armor Plating II, +5 CS, and an early unlock. German Panzers were notoriously flimsy, with weak armour and small guns, and they were not pioneers in tank design, trailing the British, Russians and French in the deployment of effective, powerful new tanks.
- It double-dips on Nazis.
- I get that people are very excited about the Nazis existing in any historical-based game, but the Third Reich has most of an entire ideology tree based on it. Using 1 of Germany's 3 precious component slots for more fascist stuff is maybe overdoing it.
Spoiler New UA proposal :
UA - Realpolitik
+3 Science per Friendly City-State and +3 Culture per Allied City-State, scaling with Era. Gain Science and Culture, scaling with Era, and Influence with all City-States for each World Congress Resolution you help pass or defeat.
Advantages
- Instead of giving you more votes, rewards you more for splitting your votes to all 3 WC proposals, and winning. Be decisive in the votes that you can influence, and try to vote with the majority on the votes you cannot influence.
- Rewards you for a different playstyle, and for actively bargaining with civs via vote-trading and other tactics
- Differentiates Germany from Austria better
- Does not copy Austria by also giving more WC votes
- Instead of making passing resolutions easier like Austria, it rewards you passing resolutions (winning easier vs winning more)
- Gives Germany a trait with a unique reward: Instant lump sum, scaling Influence with all CS globally
- Austria has a % bonus CS influence for quests with single CS at a time
- Siam has a flat lump sum of influence with each CS at a time
- Is more "pragmatic"
- Levels the bonuses for friends and allies so that you aren't even more rewarded for allies, above and beyond the standard rewards
- Forces players to assess voting more strategically and guess the AI's priorities, rather than the traditional dumping of WC votes into the single proposal you most want to pass/fail.
Spoiler Return of the Landsknecht UU proposal :
We propose to make the Landsknecht the main UU of Germany again.
A new unit -- the Free Company (on the left) -- will take the Landsknecht's current position as the Authority Finisher melee unit available at Steel (purely a cosmetic change; no gameplay impact for the new Free Company unit)
Landsknecht would then be turned into a Tercio unit, with some new unit models that add harquebusiers and Zweihanders to the original halberdiers (unit on the right).
UU - Landsknecht (replaces Tercio)
Unlocked at Guilds (1 tech earlier than Gunpowder)
280 Production (down from 300)
Unit maintenance cost per turn increased by 1
25 CS
2 Moves
Formation I
Formation II
Doppelsöldner (+30% CS when attacking a unit with full health)
Has no Purchase Cooldown
Can move immediately and has full XP when Purchased (like a Mercenary Unit)
Advantages:
- Earlier than the Panzer, so it's more likely Germany will get to use it
- Already exists -- the Vanilla game didn't have a Tercio unit class, but Germany already had a Landsknecht
- Combines with the Hanse for a combined production and gold advantage for an effective Medieval and Renaissance army
- Actually has a reason to come earlier, unlike the Panzer -- The Landsknecht were pike and shot units that predated the Spanish tercios by >100 years
- The Free Company also has better historicity:
- The Free Companies are less culturally specific, which is more suitable for a general policy finisher unit
- Free Companies were most active during the 12th to 15th centuries, whereas the Landknecht were between the 15th and 17th centuries, which puts them squarely in the Renaissance by most standards. So these German pike & shot mercenaries unlocking in early Medieval was always iffy.
Moderator Action: Changed last poll choice to "I dislike the new Landsknecht proposal, but I don't like the Panzer either" (was "I like", clearly a typo). - Recursive
Last edited: