Civ is Western-centric to begin with and always has been. This is why Feudalism and farming tech is so important and placed in the mid game. If we were to be China-centric, important farming technologies and ideologies were established in what would be the Ancient Era in Western Europe, and they'd take off from there, but suffer periodic limitations due to serial invasions from various tribes.
I don't think Military Tactics is really all that hard to get. The prereqs are just Mathematics. The key difficulty is that most players either play Pangaea or ignore navies altogether, and this very specific behavior has the weird effect of boosting core abilities like linking to other key technologies or boosting basic civilization functions like Worker charges. Indonesia gets around this because the Kampungs are insanely strong, as are the Jongs. It's not a weak civ by any means, and their play experience is distinctive.
If Stirrups were a dead-end tech and its position were replaced by Military Tactics, we would see a more interesting valuation. Do you get a dead end tech for the Knights, or just stay with the Pikemen, which would then count as basic gimmes? It would also mean that Mathematics would be required for Banking (since Mathematics is required for Military Tactics), which makes way more sense than Horseback Riders being more able to get to Banking than Mathematicians. This would not overpower any of the units on MT. They're balanced as gimmes to begin with.
But apart from that, Norway simply doesn't have a strong enough economic perk, and their military perks are okay at best. Since they're a pillaging Civ by concept, a simple boost to pillaging and a movement boost to Berserkers just so they can make it to where the enemy is is something that is both simple to implement, and easy to understand. Under this Civ ability change, pillaging a Mine would yield 50 Science, and you can serial pillage Campuses for up to 150 Science if it's up to Universities. That seem strong until you figure that you can't keep doing it; you have to wait until the enemy Civ recovers to do it again. You could war a Civ and maybe get as much out of it by pillaging as Alexander gets by conquering, except you don't get any long term cities to keep. It's extremely reasonable, and would balance the Civ immensely, while incentivizing pillaging wars with Norway. No Warmonger, too, so it's a nice thing to spring Protectorate or whatever wars and just pillage the heck out of your enemies.
The water bonus to Berserkers is specific to their naval ties. This means they can descend upon a City unexpectedly, pillage everything in two or three turns, and then leave just as fast as they came - but only if they came from the sea. If they're doing it from land, it's not nearly as good. Flavorful and effective. And this is really how Berserkers should be used even now.
I don't think Military Tactics is really all that hard to get. The prereqs are just Mathematics. The key difficulty is that most players either play Pangaea or ignore navies altogether, and this very specific behavior has the weird effect of boosting core abilities like linking to other key technologies or boosting basic civilization functions like Worker charges. Indonesia gets around this because the Kampungs are insanely strong, as are the Jongs. It's not a weak civ by any means, and their play experience is distinctive.
If Stirrups were a dead-end tech and its position were replaced by Military Tactics, we would see a more interesting valuation. Do you get a dead end tech for the Knights, or just stay with the Pikemen, which would then count as basic gimmes? It would also mean that Mathematics would be required for Banking (since Mathematics is required for Military Tactics), which makes way more sense than Horseback Riders being more able to get to Banking than Mathematicians. This would not overpower any of the units on MT. They're balanced as gimmes to begin with.
But apart from that, Norway simply doesn't have a strong enough economic perk, and their military perks are okay at best. Since they're a pillaging Civ by concept, a simple boost to pillaging and a movement boost to Berserkers just so they can make it to where the enemy is is something that is both simple to implement, and easy to understand. Under this Civ ability change, pillaging a Mine would yield 50 Science, and you can serial pillage Campuses for up to 150 Science if it's up to Universities. That seem strong until you figure that you can't keep doing it; you have to wait until the enemy Civ recovers to do it again. You could war a Civ and maybe get as much out of it by pillaging as Alexander gets by conquering, except you don't get any long term cities to keep. It's extremely reasonable, and would balance the Civ immensely, while incentivizing pillaging wars with Norway. No Warmonger, too, so it's a nice thing to spring Protectorate or whatever wars and just pillage the heck out of your enemies.
The water bonus to Berserkers is specific to their naval ties. This means they can descend upon a City unexpectedly, pillage everything in two or three turns, and then leave just as fast as they came - but only if they came from the sea. If they're doing it from land, it's not nearly as good. Flavorful and effective. And this is really how Berserkers should be used even now.
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