In Which Cyphose Has Ideas

[Cyphose]

Disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea what type of designs I'm going to be putting in here.

I don't have anywhere near the amount of historical knowledge as many of the people here and am not really capable of coming up with the unique and fantastic concepts for civilizations I've never even heard of. I also have a hard time designing a civilization for designing's sake; the Design Challenges make it slightly easier as they're just that--a challenge--but when I'm sitting around, I usually think of ideas related to the base game rather than brand new ones.

So... at least to start out, these ideas will be fairly unoriginal in scope. My very-heavily WIP mod will probably be the subject of my initial concepts, as I've been hitting some pretty hard creative block and I'll probably be using this thread as a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" kind of thing.

With that in mind, the subject of my creative woes recently has been Germany. There are a lot of different possible interpretations, and I can't decide on one that satisfies me. Here's pretty much everything I've had on the drawing board at some point or another:

German Empire
Leader: Otto von Bismarck

(UA) Blood and Iron Declaring war on another Civilization temporarily grants military units +1 Movement and +25% Combat Strength (conquering Cities extends the bonus). While at war, defeating enemy units increases Production toward military units in all Cities.

(UA) Balance of Power Time spent at peace gradually decreases Production toward military units and increases Food generation (up to a maximum), and time spent at war does the opposite (up to a maximum).

(UA) Realpolitik Declaring war on another Civilization causes Afraid City-States to immediately become Allied (if they have no Ally). Military units are 50% more effective at intimidating City-States and start with additional Experience for each City-State Ally.

(UA) Realpolitik Declaring war on a Civilization that has recently bullied a City-State under your protection causes it to immediately become Allied and allows Annexing it if the war is won. +5% Production toward military units for each City-State Ally.

Note the distinct lack of any UU/UB as well; that's another spot of creative block I'm having. I can't find anything uniquely German from Bismarck's period (sure, there are fancy names like Jaeger and Freikorps, but those were hardly only German concepts), and I'm not particularly fond of the Panzer, not only because it's anachronistically wrong for Bismarck to have, but also because it's generally pretty weak. I like the Hanse, though, so assume that stays. Again, though I'm fairly acquainted with modern history, I'm no expert and suggestions would be welcome.

Suggestions? Preferences? I like the last one the most in theory, but in practice a reliance on someone bullying your City-States is weird. The third one is the most practically useful as well as being decently interesting. The second one was just me fishing for a way to use the term "balance of power" (a term Bismarck coined), I'm not particularly fond of it (though it could be turned into something cooler). I don't strictly have any problems with the first, only that it's not all that interesting and shoehorns you into warmongering to get anything out of your bonus.

I'll undoubtedly be back with more ideas I'm kicking around, but currently, Germany is giving me a lot of grief and I can't decide what I want to do with it.

 

[Natan35]

I think that one unique that could fit here is the Junker as a great general replacement, or as great merchant replacement: it should have something to do with claiming land (and magistrates if used alongside events and decisions), or perhaps it should have something to do with intimidating city states, contrary to the great merchant who can be used to increase your influence on them.