[R&F] Civ Overhaul - Reworking the Civ Bonuses

[Stringer1313]

I think all the Civs with almost entirely passive bonuses need to be revamped to make their bonuses more interesting (rather than piling on more bonuses from the expansion kit, making things more confusing and less thematic). Some ideas:
- France: allow them to build one free wonder from the Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial era, instantly. Maybe allow Catherine to always know when someone else is building a wonder regardless of spy level.
- America: ability to switch policies anytime for free (or severely reduced rate)?
etc

 

[Morningcalm]

Greece needs a boost with more specifics; perhaps something relating to Great Writers and Artists or their navy (Athens in particular was known for their powerful navy). The wildcard slot is not nearly as powerful as people claim, even if it's a nice long term bonus and can set up an early Great Prophet post-Political Philosophy. (For comparison, look at Poland, which gets a slightly weaker version of Greece's wildcard slot bonus, and their plethora of other bonuses. Poland is not only more flexible, interesting and potent, but their abilities in general require more active use and strategizing than the Greeks IMO).

Another change I would like is for Pericles to get more buff arms and a shorter, less-Solon-like beard, but if wishes were fishes...

 

[_hero_]

Again I don't think having an expansion based bonus makes any sense. Under your scenario basically what you are saying is: we noticed this leader isn't in a good spot so we created a fix for him/her, however you can't have that fix unless you buy this expansion. Instead if they think a civ/leader is not in a good spot I think they will simply rework it to fit within the game as it currently stands, THEN if they want to address other areas of a civ with an alternative leader to match the new mechanics they will do so.

You are assuming that the new features won't be patched into the base game, with it just being things like new civs/leaders/maps left out. I'm too lazy to look up how they handled it in past games, but I know lots of gaming companies include feature changes in the base game.

Even if they aren't patched in, it's entirely possible that the base game civ bonuses are unchanged while the expansion civ bonuses are changed.

 

[Archon_Wing]

This is just my own personal wishlist and some of them sound intentionally complicated; I know it probably wouldn't happen but any of these are good for me. And yes I know this mixes leader and civ bonuses, but until otherwise, that can be sorted out. Also not familiar with the DLCs, so mostly speculation regarding that.

General Changes (Currently, the strength of a civ is directly correlated to their early game military prowess, and thus without changing the paradigm there is no way to close the gap so I would like to tilt the scale (often heavily) in the other direction as indrect buff to non-warmongers:

-- The capital starts with walls. This frees up early game option and also makes it harder to wipe a civ off the map.
-- Archer damage vs walls further halved. (Pretty obvious, massing archers is so strong that catapults aren't even a thing.) You would use rams
-- Huts no longer give relics. Relics are earned by founding a religion, building an ancient or classical wonder, or winning a certain amount of battles in theological combat. (This gets non religous civs into the relic game, instead of relying on luck, as well as boosting wonder civs)
-- Cities go through mandatory occupation for 30 turns on normal, up to 90 on marathon. All tiles that were gained through culture or purchase are lost, except for districts and wonders. Having troops in the city reduces the time, with diminishing returns per unit.. (The new culture mechanic would reduce it too)
-- Defenders gain no war weariness in combat in own territory, except from being nuked or losing cities (bigger cities cause more war weariness)
-- Warmonger penalties and district costs stop scaling after the Renaissance era.
-- Conquering any city state causes any non allied CS that know of this to turn hostile.
-- Anti-mounted units negate defensive bonuses when attacking a mounted unit.
-- Horse Archers are vulnerable to mounted units.
-- Protectorate and Reconquest wars available with political philosophy.
-- Revert settler cost scaling.

Specific Civ changes (Let's go down the list. If not listed, either I have no idea, or I don't care enough. )
America: Home Combat bonus also applies to encampments. +2 additional bonus in the industrial era.. National Parks provide double tourism
(I don't really know how to buff Amerca, tbh, but the National Park thing needs something to it)

Aztec: Eagle Warrior reduced to 26 strength. (Strong early UU plus the amenities boost already)

Brazil: Street Carnival project affects all cities 6 tiles within range.

Chinese: Can use workers on later wonders at reduced effectiveness. (10% for medieval, 5% for after). Crouching Tiger reduced cost, by like 5. (I dunno)

Egypt: UU does not replace the Heavy Chariot. River bonus increased to 25%

England: Archeologists available with humanism. They get no early bonus, so they better get a strong bonus otherwise.

French: Spies reveal a greater area and can undertake special missions unique to the french such as sabotage production

Greece Wins tiebreakers as Suzerain. Bonuses for the 6th and 9th envoys come 1 envoy before (so they get it at 5 and 8)

India: +1 faith for each civ at peace, excluding India themselves.

Japan: Encampments do not count towards the district limit

Kongo: 75% bonus to great people, instead of 50.

Macedon-- Reduced to half war weariness and half occupation time. Allowing them to completely negate another civs bonus seems ridiculous.

Scythia-- Remove bonus vs wounded units, heal for kill reduced to 20%. Self Explanatory, will still be plenty strong.

Sumeria-- War Cart replaces Heavy Chariot, 34 strength and no maintenance cost. Can declare war without penalty on anyone at war with their friends or CS's that they are a suzerain with.

Self explanatory. War carts being available at the start is the stupidest thing ever. This will they'll still be strong but take longer to come out. Allies are way too hard to get.

Spain-- Bonuses applies if you have a majority religion, even if you didn't found it. The only requirement is the majority of your civ follows a religion, and the other civ has a majority that follows another. Can also call Holy War in the same circumstances. This allows them to adopt a religion to their needs.

 

[Amrunril]

Perhaps this should be in Ideas and Suggestions.

I agree that Persia would be a prime candidate to use some of the new mechanics, though it would be a bit odd to change it so soon after release. Its even conceivable, though not especially likely that they'd include reworked Persia in the expansion, as I think they included Spain in one of the Civ V expansions. There's also no shortage of vanilla civs that would be good candidates for loyalty abilities. Perhaps one will get it in the form of an alternate leader.

 

[ferretbacon]

It would make a lot sense for them to change Persian Satrapies -unique ability. Satrapies were literally governors. Also the bonus Satrapies now has is pretty boring trade route bonus.

I think Persia makes sense for using the governor system in some way. If they don't want to subtract anything from their current ability, I think simply adding the ability to earn Governor Titles at a faster rate on top of their current bonuses would work.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Some thoughts on topic:

1. With dynamic borders it would be reasonable to assume "culture bombing" civs need reworking, but the funny thing is - all of them are DLC civs and were released while expansion was already in the works (especially Khmer). So my guess is - their ability will stay and will complement dynamic borders, rather than break it. Although, Russia land grab could be altered, depending on how those dynamic borders are implemented.
2. The rest of Layalty system is unlikely to affect existing civs, but could be used to nerf crazy conquest. i mean Scythia here.
3. More alliances could affect existing civs/leaders relying on diplomacy. Peter and Gilga are likely candidates to receive some additional alliance-related bonuses. Cleo is a good candidate for indirect bonuses (as her foreign trade bonuses will stack with those provided by alliances).
4. Golden/Dark/Heroic ages are more likely to be explored new civs rather than existing ones.
5. Governors - the same. Although if they are somehow fit into Great People system, some civs like Pedro could see some changes related to them.

 

[TheSpaceCowboy]

Here are two ideas to add mechanics from the expansion to some of the base civilizations without breaking them for players who keep the vanilla game for the time being:

Greece - converting a City-State through loyalty allows Greece to retain its suzerain bonus over it

Germany - gains the same +7 attack against Free Cities as it does City-States

 

[Josephias]

This occurred to me when checking Isabella in the new leaders topic, but I think it fits more thematically with Spain's treasure fleets: a minor boost to the UA that adds extra golden age points for navigation or sea-based historic achievements (we know world's circumnavegation is one of these, and both this and the discovery of a new world are credited to Spain - yes, Norway disagrees, but nobody knew of Vindand until waaay after -, plus relevant contributions to marine corps, amphibious warfare, submarines,... ).

Spain, (and specially both Philip II and Isabella as leader), is quite a target for religion-based loyalty bonus-malus.


Already commented, Barbarossa should use same combat bonuses for free cities than for city states, altough at the cost of dealing with loyalty issues. (This is, his cities would not be the most loyal ones, but he would be able to recover them by force... plus get some cities from his neibourghs as well).

Persian Satraphea could get linked to governors (extra trade route bonus for governor cities?), if not overlaping too much with a potential Ottoman trait.

America seems a potential target for minor bonuses on government district and loyalty by culture, but nothing game-changing. Victoria may be also a candidate for loyalty bonuses based on cultural, military or scientific power (victorian fondness on "the empire" which set the "civilized" standard)

Saladin, as a paladin of his faith, could have a boost on potential achievements related to defending its religion.
Greece's leaders would fit as well for a minor and differentiated golden age points boost: Pericles/Athens based on culture and alliances and Gorgo/Sparta based on military achievements.

China's Dynastic Cicles may be used to potentiate or tweak golden/dark ages in some way (reflecting it has had ups and lows, but it has always remained a remarkable power, it could avoid some of the challenges introduced by "rise and fall" (while still benefiting from golden ages). -> Maybe shorter dark ages and longer golden ages, but no heroic ages.

As comented Cleo (Economy), Gilgamesh (military), Peter (science) may be given some alliance bonus.




Some crazy ones

* Strong governors (maybe free military trait) but loyalty issues in their cities if different-leveled for Macedon (companions-succesor states?)
* Japan golden / dark ages impacting greatly its alliegance bonuses (isolationism / commerce switch).
* Kongo's Mbembe Nzinga should get even more crazy bonuses by joining religious alliegances (and will hate you if you reject signing this tipe of alliance).
* Norway could "raid" golden age points from other civs (this is, geting raided by vikings makes you more likely to get a Dark Age, and at the same time makes them more likely to get a Golden Age).
* Rome's governors are more powerful, but become a big loyalty issue entering a dark age (so much you are likely to not be able to use them or expose to immedate civil war (city loss as free city))

 

[Sostratus]

It would make a lot sense for them to change Persian Satrapies -unique ability. Satrapies were literally governors. Also the bonus Satrapies now has is pretty boring trade route bonus.

Especially since they are introducing the Economic alliance, I remain hopeful that they will try to do some rethinking on domestic trade routes: they are simply too strong until globalization. I too would love to see Persia get something oriented towards governors rather than extra gold and culture to domestic routes. (And I think that bonus is only there to proxy "stable internal governance" anyways.)

I also agree that Pericles would be perfect for a golden/heroic/dark age themed leader ability. "Surrounded by Glory" is the name for goodness sakes. The problem now is that 5% isn't a lot early, and gorgo just generates more culture in the beginning, which wins out in the end. But greece would be a very fitting civ for a golden/heroic age leader. You would just FEEL like an Olympian in one of those heroic ages.

 

[martyb36]

As an Egypt fan I’d love to see them gain access to the Heavy Chariot. Currently they miss out on one of the most powerful upgrade rushes (HC->Knight).
Also their 15% bonus to districts sort of pales compared to Nubia’s bonus, which doesn’t even need to be next to rivers.

 

[Uberfrog]

I think that would have to be saved for an alt leader maybe, maybe Bismark, since the loyalty mechanic will be part of the expansion so not everyone that owns Barbarossa will necessarily have access to the loyalty mechanic.

You are assuming that the new features won't be patched into the base game, with it just being things like new civs/leaders/maps left out. I'm too lazy to look up how they handled it in past games, but I know lots of gaming companies include feature changes in the base game.

Even if they aren't patched in, it's entirely possible that the base game civ bonuses are unchanged while the expansion civ bonuses are changed.

They won't be patched in. The Civ series has always pursued the traditional expansion pack model, where the expansion becomes a new version of the game, and people who do not own the expansion get no access to the new features. This obviously allows a much greater overhaul of mechanics. As someone said, France's ability in Civ V was radically changed in BNW, but if you didn't own the expansion, you carried on playing as original France, in the absence of the new cultural victory rules.

Other companies take a sort of mini-expansion approach (notably Paradox) where new gameplay features are added to the base game, but can't be engaged with fully until you pay for the expansion. This model wouldn't really work for Civ.

So it's highly possible many base game civs will get a rework, and it won't affect players of the vanilla version at all. In fact I think they've already hinted that civs that are geared towards large intercontinental empires (like England or Spain) will have some sort of tweak to cope with the new Loyalty system.

 

[Aurelesk]

The civilization that play the wonder game (China, Egypt, France) just need two things:

• Increase the value of base Tourism (+4, instead of +2).
• Compensation for loosing, like Production converted into Gold, instead of nothing.

I remember in one of the first stream that losing the wonder race didn't erase the wonder from the tiles (that was unusable). Maybe that was not intended. But maybe they wanted to allow to use the wonder leftovers like a 1 charge Production boost.

The weak Civlization for me are France, Norway, Spain, China, India, Poland, England or Egypt.

• France, China and Egypt mostly because the Wonder game is not relevant.
• Norway and England mostly because Pangea is the standard map for most player.
• Spain, India, Poland mostly because they can't secure a Religion.

We need something for the Religion, because religion-civilization can't secure a religion. Allowing 75% + 1 Civilization to create a religion will be too much, and can't secure a religion. I think we need a new mechanics like:

• Reformation: If your civilization control the Holy City of the religion, and the majority of you cities follow this religion, you can launch a Reformation. That allow to choose a new Founder Belief (that are weaker that the originals) and to play the Religious Victory.
• Great Prophet can be recruited more than once. They now have a special ability like other Great People that can increase Faith generation, theological combat strength or conversion charge of newly created religious units, healing, Faith from buildings, some Eureka or Inspiration... They still can create a Religion.
• Guru are now religionless and can heal every units: religious, non-religious, and units from other civilizations or religion. They now can convert Barbarians and Rebels to units. They also can create a religion. Guru that lose a theological combat don't generate any negative religion pressure aura (because they are religionless), but now heal the enemy when defeated.

Maybe with the new Loyalty system, France will be naturally increased with a Spy game more strategic. The only thing I think Catherine need is: 1 Military slot is converted into Diplomatic in every government (she chooses the diplomatic way instead of the military way in the religion war).

 

[God of Kings]

We need something for the Religion, because religion-civilization can't secure a religion. Allowing 75% + 1 Civilization to create a religion will be too much, and can't secure a religion. I think we need a new mechanics like:

• Reformation: If your civilization control the Holy City of the religion, and the majority of you cities follow this religion, you can launch a Reformation. That allow to choose a new Founder Belief (that are weaker that the originals) and to play the Religious Victory.
• Great Prophet can be recruited more than once. They now have a special ability like other Great People that can increase Faith generation, theological combat strength or conversion charge of newly created religious units, healing, Faith from buildings, some Eureka or Inspiration... They still can create a Religion.
• Guru are now religionless and can heal every units: religious, non-religious, and units from other civilizations or religion. They now can convert Barbarians and Rebels to units. They also can create a religion. Guru that lose a theological combat don't generate any negative religion pressure aura (because they are religionless), but now heal the enemy when defeated.

Maybe with the new Loyalty system, France will be naturally increased with a Spy game more strategic. The only thing I think Catherine need is: 1 Military slot is converted into Diplomatic in every government (she chooses the diplomatic way instead of the military way in the religion war).

Being able to have more than one Great Prophet would make Exodus of the Evangelists dedication bonus much more useful.

If CdM's Military slot were converted to Diplomacy, then there needs to be a diplomacy card available to all civs after researching Code of Laws (the first civic; unlocks the Chiefdom government, which has one military slot and one economic slot).

 

[Morningcalm]

Why were America's government legacy bonuses undone again? I fail to see how Rise and Fall changes affect gov't legacy bonuses.

 

[Phrozen]

Why were America's government legacy bonuses undone again? I fail to see how Rise and Fall changes affect gov't legacy bonuses.

Because the government legacy bonuses are going away in favor of the government district.

America would be a good showcase for governors since it is supposed to be more along the Swiss model of strong state governments in many areas and a strong federal government in only a few clearly defined ones.

 

[Morningcalm]

Ugh, that's a shame. Basically they share a bonus with Poland, just as Poland, Khmer, Australia etc all have culture bomb options.

 

[Vahnstad]

This is just my own personal wishlist and some of them sound intentionally complicated; I know it probably wouldn't happen but any of these are good for me. And yes I know this mixes leader and civ bonuses, but until otherwise, that can be sorted out. Also not familiar with the DLCs, so mostly speculation regarding that.

General Changes (Currently, the strength of a civ is directly correlated to their early game military prowess, and thus without changing the paradigm there is no way to close the gap so I would like to tilt the scale (often heavily) in the other direction as indrect buff to non-warmongers:

-- The capital starts with walls. This frees up early game option and also makes it harder to wipe a civ off the map.
-- Archer damage vs walls further halved. (Pretty obvious, massing archers is so strong that catapults aren't even a thing.) You would use rams
-- Huts no longer give relics. Relics are earned by founding a religion, building an ancient or classical wonder, or winning a certain amount of battles in theological combat. (This gets non religous civs into the relic game, instead of relying on luck, as well as boosting wonder civs)
-- Cities go through mandatory occupation for 30 turns on normal, up to 90 on marathon. All tiles that were gained through culture or purchase are lost, except for districts and wonders. Having troops in the city reduces the time, with diminishing returns per unit.. (The new culture mechanic would reduce it too)
-- Defenders gain no war weariness in combat in own territory, except from being nuked or losing cities (bigger cities cause more war weariness)
-- Warmonger penalties and district costs stop scaling after the Renaissance era.
-- Conquering any city state causes any non allied CS that know of this to turn hostile.
-- Anti-mounted units negate defensive bonuses when attacking a mounted unit.
-- Horse Archers are vulnerable to mounted units.
-- Protectorate and Reconquest wars available with political philosophy.
-- Revert settler cost scaling.

Specific Civ changes (Let's go down the list. If not listed, either I have no idea, or I don't care enough. )
America: Home Combat bonus also applies to encampments. +2 additional bonus in the industrial era.. National Parks provide double tourism
(I don't really know how to buff Amerca, tbh, but the National Park thing needs something to it)

Aztec: Eagle Warrior reduced to 26 strength. (Strong early UU plus the amenities boost already)

Brazil: Street Carnival project affects all cities 6 tiles within range.

Chinese: Can use workers on later wonders at reduced effectiveness. (10% for medieval, 5% for after). Crouching Tiger reduced cost, by like 5. (I dunno)

Egypt: UU does not replace the Heavy Chariot. River bonus increased to 25%

England: Archeologists available with humanism. They get no early bonus, so they better get a strong bonus otherwise.

French: Spies reveal a greater area and can undertake special missions unique to the french such as sabotage production

Greece Wins tiebreakers as Suzerain. Bonuses for the 6th and 9th envoys come 1 envoy before (so they get it at 5 and 8)

India: +1 faith for each civ at peace, excluding India themselves.

Japan: Encampments do not count towards the district limit

Kongo: 75% bonus to great people, instead of 50.

Macedon-- Reduced to half war weariness and half occupation time. Allowing them to completely negate another civs bonus seems ridiculous.

Scythia-- Remove bonus vs wounded units, heal for kill reduced to 20%. Self Explanatory, will still be plenty strong.

Sumeria-- War Cart replaces Heavy Chariot, 34 strength and no maintenance cost. Can declare war without penalty on anyone at war with their friends or CS's that they are a suzerain with.

Self explanatory. War carts being available at the start is the stupidest thing ever. This will they'll still be strong but take longer to come out. Allies are way too hard to get.

Spain-- Bonuses applies if you have a majority religion, even if you didn't found it. The only requirement is the majority of your civ follows a religion, and the other civ has a majority that follows another. Can also call Holy War in the same circumstances. This allows them to adopt a religion to their needs.

It still needs to be feasible to declare war. This would be a game where i would never declare war (and probably not play anymore... )

 

[Archon_Wing]

But war is still feasible.... even with that it'd still be the best method. I was just focused on nerfing early war for the most part and making it less penalizing to fight a defensive war.

I mean these are mostly things taken from previous games and you could definitely war in those.