ideas for civilization abilities (only)

[Meowzer]

Instead of listing complete civs will all their features, I thought it'd be cool to focus only on civ abilities (and only if we think they're especially cool).

If we do this I think some of our ideas would stand a good chance of getting included in future civs.

Here's one of my ideas:

Israel
Civilization ability: Chosen People
Israel's cities cannot be converted to another civilization's religion. (Israel is exempted from other civilizations' Religious victory condition.)

 

[Tamir Lenk]

Byzantines should get a means to pirate other civs' UU. Something like Byzantines can upgrade their units to any tech appropriate UU available to another civ with whom they've interacted (war, trade, ally).

 

[darkace77450]

The Netherlands
Dutch East India Company - gain 2 gold per turn for each luxury resource you have access to.

 

[Victoria]

Pontus
Scythed Chariots (half price) are heavy chariots that have a 30% chance of fighting with +10. If they succeed, they disappear at the end of combat.

Switzerland
Pikemen get +6 and can be rented out to other civs for gold.

Finland
Infantrymen get +10 in snow

 

[Tamir Lenk]

Pontus
Scythed Chariots (half price) are heavy chariots that have a 30% chance of fighting with +10. If they succeed, they disappear at the end of combat.

This would be better as a the winged hussar push back IMO. But I like where your head's at. Need some Roman flaming pigs too.

 

[Tamir Lenk]

The Netherlands
Dutch East India Company - gain 2 gold per turn for each luxury resource you have access to.

Um, that would be super broken, unless the Dutch couldn't build units or something to soak up all that cash.

 

[Tdot1]

Um, that would be super broken, unless the Dutch couldn't build units or something to soak up all that cash.

But the Dutch where masters of trade and getting access to resources that others severely struggled to. I don't think its OP, I reckon it could be a really great bonus. Maybe combine it with a trade ability? Like extra gold for trading with civs that have luxuries that other civs don't have (I don't really know)

 

[Jarms48]

Um, that would be super broken, unless the Dutch couldn't build units or something to soak up all that cash.

How? There's only 30 unique luxuries in the game, that's an extra 60 gold; assuming you even get all of them. 6 of those luxuries are only accessible with city-state allies or great people. Meaning you can lose those allies, either through envoys or conquest, or they just don't spawn on the map. You can miss those great people, either they're taken first or someone reshuffles the deck, or they just don't appear in that game. Then there's the chance of the other 24 even all appearing on the map, and under your control.

I'd say it's fairly balanced, at least in the same way as the Aztecs ability.

 

[CaptainShootALot]

A rough idea for the Dutch:

VOC-Mentality: gain the ability to purchase/build a 'koopman' unit that has one charge to construct a 'factorij' improvement. Improvement must be built outside of own territory on luxury resources adjacent to the coast and on continents other than the home continent. Gives a copy of the luxury resource that it's built on, can be pillaged without a declaration of war.

 

[Siptah]

I'm not sure if this can be balanced, but it would be a nice aggressive domination style ability and fitting for the civ. It might maybe fit better for a leader than a civ but nonetheless.

(Achaemenid) Persia
If you occupy/own the majority of cities of another civ, you get 50% of their civ unique ability.

 

[Tdot1]

(Achaemenid) Persia
If you occupy/own the majority of cities of another civ, you get 50% of their civ unique ability.

Love the idea. Maybe it would be slightly awkward configuring what exactly 50% means, but still, I think that would be a really great Civ Bonus. Especially cause it makes attacking other Civs actually worthwhile, other than just getting more cities

 

[Siptah]

Maybe it would be slightly awkward configuring what exactly 50% means

That's why I am unsure how it can be balanced. Giving the whole civ ability is probably way too much. It would make you absolutely unstoppable after wiping out 3 civs. But on the other hand, you are so anyway in that position.
Some abilities can be quantified and scaled down (founding fathers, dynastic cycles, iteru, british museum, grand tour), some really can't (last prophet, free imperial cities, plato's republic). Some are useless if scaled down (aztec district rush).

 

[Phrozen]

I think this would be a better Dutch ability:
Reclamation: The Dutch can build districts on coast adjacent to the city center. These districts get +1 adjacency bonus with the city center and harbors. Land units can enter these districts and get a defense bonus in them.

 

[Siptah]

Portugal
For each first city founded on a continent, a radius of 6 hexes around the city center will be permanently visible and all goody huts in it claimed. In addition to that, you get a free trader unit in each one of these cities. This sounds overpowered, but is not imho. You still need to build commercial hubs/harbors to get the slots to use the traders. The capital is included here as well, so you start with a boost already. Might not sound too interesting, because passive and not too far away from already known abilities. I would consider it a nice treat, though.

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And since someone mentioned it, I still think it would be nice for Switzerland to have a malus that (almost) locks it out of the domination victory condition. So a bit like the Kongo we already have. Would be really different to play.

Switzerland
Malus 1: Declaration of war is only possible with a reconquest cases belli.
Malus 2: Unable to conquer foreign cities except originally Swiss ones and liberating cities/city states. This may be debatable.
Bonus 1: Receives a free envoy in each city state that gets declared war by any civ.
Bonus 2: Receives 10% of the income of each foreign civ that Switzerland has open borders with.
Bonus 3: Additional 5% of the income of a foreign civ for every trade route going between these civs.


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Sudan/Nubia/Kush/Meroë
Enemy units do not heal in your territory (except when pillaging farms etc.). Enemy units, including barbarians and religious units, get -5 to combat and ranged strength inside your territory.
So this makes this civ essentially a very defensive one. Might not be too interesting for many players, but maybe a good starter civ? Some nice leader bonus ideas also pop up here.

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Armenia
I think we still lack a decent hill/mountain based civ and Armenia could be that. How about an extra faith from hills next to mountains and the ability to build all improvements, districts and wonders on hills?

 

[Tamir Lenk]

How? There's only 30 unique luxuries in the game, that's an extra 60 gold; assuming you even get all of them. 6 of those luxuries are only accessible with city-state allies or great people. Meaning you can lose those allies, either through envoys or conquest, or they just don't spawn on the map. You can miss those great people, either they're taken first or someone reshuffles the deck, or they just don't appear in that game. Then there's the chance of the other 24 even all appearing on the map, and under your control.

I'd say it's fairly balanced, at least in the same way as the Aztecs ability.

If you limit it to each different luxury possessed by the Dutch, to emphasize their trade focus, maybe. The first proposal seemed to include duplicate copies, etc.

Aztecs only get the bonus for each different luxury developed within Aztec territory, which curtails the bonus some.

 

[Jarms48]

Aztecs only get the bonus for each different luxury developed within Aztec territory, which curtails the bonus some.

Which what I assumed he meant, which doesn't seem overpowered at all.

 

[Siptah]

Celts
A chance that you gain +1 amenity in a random city and a lump sum of faith for every enemy (non-barbarian?) unit you kill.
This might be not too easy to balance. And admittedly it would have been more fitting for the Aztec.

Nepal
Units can move over mountains. It requires full movement cost to enter a mountain tile and again a full turn to leave it or move to an adjacent mountain. Units that end their turn on mountains gain a defensive bonus. They are of course attackable by ranged units, but also by melee units (that suffer an additional malus to do so and don't move on the mountain tile if victorious). While situational, this ability would bring some overall insecurity to the game (since mountains create such nice bottlenecks right now which would be gone) and a great tactical advantage for Nepal in fights.

 

[daliwest]

Sweden (Olof Palme)
"Defender of Human Rights"
+10% bonus influence points to City States.
+15% combat strength for units when defending/liberating City States.
+1 Amenity in cities when not at war.

Sweden (Gustavus Adolphus)
"The Lion of the North"
+1 Gold from internal traderoutes.
Gain Great General points equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed.
25% discount when taking control of suzerain army.

/Dali

 

[Siptah]

Phoenicia
Harbor districts give / receive an extraordinary bonus of +5 to / of adjacent districts. This comes with the handicap of wanting harbors in most cities and then putting lots of things on the coast. Finding good places for city centers might not be too easy to get the most out of that.

Hittites
Builders gain the ability to create bonus resources for 1 charge and strategical resources, which needs an unused builder who disappears afterwards.

Khmer
For every removing of features or harvesting of resources you receive an (larger) amount of gold additional to the usual yields.

 

[daliwest]

Denmark
"Great Heathen Army"
+100% Yields gained from pillaging. (With the policy card "Raid" you get a massive +200% when pillaging)
+2 Movement for all units if they start their turn on coastal or river tiles.