Poll: how much would you change old civs in the next patch?

Germany: get rid of the Panzer. Replace it with a UB representative of German production or intellectualism. The UA needs to be scrapped and reworked altogether.

Japan: scrap the Zero. Replace with UB. There's more to Japan than just war-war-war.

IMO, those are the two most pressing ones. America is outshone by the Shoshone, though. I think America could use a tourism-boost late game. Perhaps bring back the UB "Mall" in another light.

 

I'd rather they tweak the B17 (or leave as is) and add some sort of tourism boost in addition to the UA (or a tourism boost replacing the cheaper tiles)

 

You could say they are... outshoshone?

...I'm sorry, I know it's terrible. I just had a compulsion to write that

 

ok so my opinion... America, Germany and India are the Civs that need tweaking. with america they really ought to have a UA that reflects the cultural powerhouse that the US is. Germany, Industry, Production. India, faith... see my idea for india is a little different from anything that ive seen so far and it is kindve overpowered but that could be minimized by keeping the original UA as well, something, i think india's ua should be something like an ability to found two religions, im not sure exactly how it would work and it would probably be massively overpowered but its accurate.

 

Germany and the Ottomans need an overhaul. Because all other UA mechanics are not chance based. Neither should these be.

Japan and Denmark are pretty awful as well. Also 2 UU in the same upgrade line are stupid.

Amercia is fine. The +1 sight is always super useful. The UU is great.

 

Germany UA:

Would be really cool to make them have some bonus to the philosophy tech possible considering how historically continental and analytic philosophy were essentially German civic societies fortes. How about getting a free Great Writer after researching philosophy?

OR

Great writers can create great works & political treatises? ( maybe too good)

 

Here's an unsophisticated but effective argument for why the Panzer and Zero are the worst UUs in the game: two civs that have medieval UUs and UAs designed for pure warmongering—especially Germany's, which peaks very early in the game—will not, if they're played optimally, be around long enough to use Atomic-era UUs. Of course you don't have to play any civ optimally, but it's just clunky design to have a UA that, if used well, will preclude you from seeing one of your units. Tension between uniques can be interesting, like how Ethiopia's UA says "go tall" and their UB screams "go wide," but "oh, you did a good job? sorry, you don't get this unit" isn't really tension.

This argument does not apply to the B-17, however. The B-17 has decent synergy with the other American uniques (by "decent," I mean that hey, at least it's not in direct conflict with them) and it's also, in a vacuum, a much better UU than the Panzer or Zero (or Landsknecht or Samurai, for that matter). America in general is actually in a pretty good place, I think; they'd be low on my list of civs to change.

In any event, we know that Japan and Germany are going to get another look. I'd be very surprised if they removed any of the UUs (although I guess it's conceivable that they could move the Panzer to the Autocracy tree like they moved the Foreign Legion to Freedom). Instead, I'm hoping for—and, having listened to the podcast, think we can expect (at least for Japan)—new UAs that make the civs less war-oriented and more likely to actually last until the Atomic era. Hopefully we'll get a more powerful, less soporific Landsknecht, too. And a snazzier Samurai!

Beyond those two, I think Denmark is most in need of attention (something is seriously rotten with the state of Denmark, ha ha). Most of the other civs are in a decent place in terms of balance and whatnot, although of course I'd change lots of them out of personal preference. First an overhaul of India, then an overhaul of Babylon, new UAs for the Ottomans and China, maybe reworked UAs for Russia, the Songhai, and the Huns. I'd rename the Dutch UA (purely out of fussiness). And then I'd want to tinker with all the old UUs—replace the Ballista with a Forum or something, then spruce up some of the others. It's a pity that the vanilla civs have all these iconic unique units with ultra-bland abilities—the Hoplite and Musketeer are particularly disappointing now that we have cool stuff like the Impi, Winged Hussar, and Kris Swordsman.

 

I feel like most of the vanilla Civs could use some updating. I agree with the general feeling that the later additions to the game have a lot more flavor. I think the first thing they could do to most of these old civs is tweak any UU that is nothing but a marginally stronger copy of the predecessor, adding flavorful bonuses or upgrades as appropriate. Beyond that I don't think most of the UAs really need that much work, beyond the possible exception of Germany. I personally love America's UA - the sight is awesome, and I don't know about anyone else but I always purchase tiles aggressively, and being able to do it cheaply is awesome! The Shoshone might outshine them at this game though, so they need something more than the Minutemen (which aren't bad) and the B17 (which is terrible) to compensate.

 

The B-17 was slightly undercut by the introduction of Great War Bombers (by the time you can upgrade them, they'll have promotions that render the B-17's Siege I redundant), but it's an extremely powerful unit. Bombers are probably the single most effective unit for late-game warfare, and the B-17 has more strength than a regular Bomber, takes half as much damage as an unpromoted Bomber, and starts with a free promotion, which means that you can easily pick up Air Repair (with just Barracks + Armory) and conceivably can start with Logistics (if you have the Brandenburg Gate or went Autocracy). It is very, very good.

 

For America - I feel like there's a lot of directions you can go with America. I sort of like the "nation of immigrants" angle, although I'm not sure how you'd implement that in an active and fun way. My first idea was a growth/culture bonus for each other civ you're happier than (you're attracting immigrants from that nation). You could also make it proportional to your tourism influence over them, or something else. That might be kind of passive and boring, though.

For Germany - I like the idea of a unit that just comes at a deep discount, and there's synergy between having a spammable unit and having reduced maintenance costs. However, I feel the Landschneckt has two issues. First, unless the early game didn't go so great or I got unlucky, at Civil Service I don't necessarily feel like I need a bunch of random beatstick units, because I already have random beatstick units on account of how I built some in order to try to capture barbs, and also I captured some barbs. Second, Landschneckt upgrade into lancers, which is not a unit that I feel like I want a huge number of, so even if I live the dream of having the huge Landschneckt army - something of questionable value in the first place, given the role of melee units - it turns into an even more questionable Lancer army.

What I think would be interesting for Germany would be if military victories contributed to great person generation somehow. People have noted that Germany has a strong claim to excellence in engineering, science, and the arts, and tying great person generation into their military prowess would give them a pretty unique niche as a war-focused civ with a GP bonus (most other civs with a great-person benefit have little incentive to go down a militaristic path). There's a few ways you could implement this. On the generation side, you could change their unique ability to generate GPP for victories, you could give them a UB that generates GPP when a unit wins a fight, or you could give Landschneckt and Panzers a unique promotion that generates GPP when they win. Because GPP aren't a normal yield, possible implementations might be to have each specialist in the civ generate a GPP (or a fraction of a GPP) on a victory, to generate the GPP for whatever great person is closest to finishing, or having military victories accumulate a special counter (similar to what generates great generals), and just let Germany pick the GP they want when the counter fills up, similar to the Mayan ability, or to just decide that the ability only generates Engineer GPP in the capital, and that's it.

For Japan - I like the idea of playing up the isolationism angle, but agree with the devs that something like reduced effect of other people's tourism is boring, and in general encouraging you to not interact with other civs feels like it's something that's very difficult to make compelling, so I'm not sure how much legs such an idea has.

For Denmark - I honestly don't know what to with Denmark. Militaristic with a dash of exploration is a fine direction, but they feel like they're mostly a pile of situational bonuses. They also feel like a design from a world before the big naval combat overhaul. There's probably some combination of abilities that could be thrown together to make it work, but my first idea is this, which is probably just idiotic and OP: What if all their melee land and naval units just had +1 movement, period? I think that the Berzerker is proof of concept that this is nice but not completely absurd, but I could be totally wrong about that. (This benefit would replace the +1 embarked movement and free pillaging, since it basically includes those.) So that the Berserker still has something of a function, go ahead and give it a combat strength boost. (It's possible that it may be important to make the benefit not apply to scouts, but I don't mind making Denmark good explorers.)

 

QFT, those 4 definitely stand out to me as the most in need of a rework.

 

It's a little passive, but that's a nice mechanic—it's self-limiting, which I think is quite clever; the more citizens you get, the more your happiness advantage erodes. The one thing I don't like about it (apart from the fact that I don't think America needs a new UA) is that it encourages America to go tall. Build a couple big cities, pile up happiness, watch your big cities grow bigger. To keep America expansionist (and maybe make it more interactive), you could make it a huge bonus, but only in cities under size X, or only in recently-founded cities.

Hit the nail on the head. Like Japan, Denmark has really been left behind by changes to the combat system. A lot of what makes Denmark historically interesting has already gone to other civs (the Ottomans as pirates, the English as master sailors, the Polynesians as explorers), which mostly just leaves the whole raiding-and-pillaging angle. I'd leave the embarked movement from the existing UA in place, and probably keep some form of the disembarkation bonus (like, all Danish units have 1 movement point left after disembarking—no more of this gimmicky business of siege units landing, setting up, and firing all in one turn). Then I'd add some kind of interactive pillaging mechanic. It'd be cool to have a civ that was all about warfare without being about conquest (if not entirely historically accurate for Denmark). How about this:

When a Danish melee unit makes a successful attack on an enemy city, it receives a Loot promotion. If the unit returns safely to Danish territory, it can unload its Loot and receive a bonus (sort of like the Portuguese Nau in reverse). Loot types include Manuscripts (science), Artwork (culture), Metalwork (gold), Relics (faith), and Thralls (population). The yield depends on the size of the city attacked and on the city's output—Manuscripts from a city with a National College give a big boost; Relics from a city with just a Shrine give a very small one. Might throw in extra gold for pillaging, too. Maybe the Berserker can get two different Loots at the same time if he attacks twice?

 

Whatever happens, I hope the Zero, Panzer and B17 stay. I like the concept of late game UUs so they should just give each one a slight buff - or in Zero's case a major one (although I think B17 doesn't need one)

 

Wouldn't someone just farm a city state or a very weaken Civ?

 

Trust me: I love Anerica as is. While the shoshone fade into a "no bonus" early in the game, america continues to get stronger. The minuteman is a beast with the +1 sight range, and the upgraded versions can easily dpot for bombers. I as well love the b-17, but I would love to see a similar late game unit take its place, for personal reasons:
Airborne (replaces paratrooper)- +2 range on drop. Can attack on the same turn it is dropped. Slightly lower combat strength (60 rather than 65) but a 20% combat bonus on defense (defensive strength 72 rather than 65)
As the only nation to use paratroopers to great effect (I realise the germans used fallschrimajaeger on several occassions, but they were much more limited in scale and often had many catostrophic setbacks) I think it would be nice to have a strong unit capable of truly capitalizing on Americas sight bonus. The Airborne could drop further, see further, and do more damage in a shorter amount of time than any unit that came before it. Again though, I like the b-17 and would be happy if they kept it.

 

I hope Germany keeps the panzer. Yes yes it's late, but it works fine when supported with air. Them having standard autocracy's ZOC ignoring would perhaps be fair (and make some historical sense -> blitzkrieg). Replace the landsknecht with a unique workshop or factory or something (like Civ4's). Change the barb converting UI to something else besides the 25% less unit maintenance.

 

Having played 3000 plus hours, a total overhaul of all the civs would be a welcome change. In general i think the civs have too few UU´s for late game. It would be logical to bring more of these into the game now that we have BNW. My wish for more leaderheads per civ, like in civ4, will probably not happen. But now ive said it anyway!

 

For Japan, I could see a buff to internal trade routes (say, +50% to growth and production) as being an interesting UA. I think it would be appropriate flavor-wise, while also making for fun gameplay.

 

Completly agree with you that Denmark, like other vainilla civs has been surprased by all the expansions and patches rendering them bland as hell. I dont think any civs takes full advantage of raiding and keeping its target in caos, before all BNW civs were announced I was hoping to see a Comanche civ worked around pillaging. But Denmark could fill that niche nicely.

Having them pillage AND then go back could be clunky as overseas distance can be hard to travel. However the part about attacking a city yielding pillage is really interesting.

I'd add to it : pillaged tiles within sight keep generating loot, making coastal tiles particulary vulnerable, pillage them then station some ships near and kill any worker trying to repair it. It would encourage a very diferent warfare, going after a vulnerable civ and making sure they stay pillaged for as long as possible.

It makes me wish they'd loose the Sky infantry and get a Longship instead.

 

Yeah, perhaps. Easy enough to solve, though—let's say you can only pillage a city roughly once every ten turns (standard speed).