Rebalance of 2/3 of all civs in April!

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The real meme is Fraleanor, but then again France is basically a blank civ, so synergy or not doesn't matter.

France has always felt like a primarily culture civ with some domination bonuses, such as the Garde Imperiale, so she still fits.

 

[Archon_Wing]

France has always felt like a primarily culture civ with some domination bonuses, such as the Garde Imperiale, so she still fits.

The French UU only benefits from being on your home continent, so that doesn't really help with Domination wins. It's basically just a bootleg Cossack; yes better at home but much less useful in general.

As for the cultural bonuses, basically nonexistent. Wonder based tourism never has been a factor in any culture victory as it's too little anyways (maybe monopolies but those are broken to begin wiith), the Chateau is terrible, and building wonders a little faster doesn't even keep up with Workshop of the World. I would take a half priced harbor over any of France's bonuses for a CV any day of the week.

 

[UWHabs]

Eleanor is a domination leader, which works well with England as a civ that mostly has military abilities.

The real meme is Fraleanor, but then again France is basically a blank civ, so synergy or not doesn't matter.

The awkward part about EnglEleanor is that you have to focus on a lot of things. England has bonuses so you want industrial zones, but they also have a unique harbor, so you need that. But Eleanor needs great works, which means theatres and/or holy sites. So basically, she wants to build every district except campuses, which are obviously useful for other ways. Heck, England has basically 4X Military engineers, so she even needs to make sure she has at least one encampment ready to pump them out when required. She basically needs Germany's free district slot to even try to maximize her power.

FrEleanor at least has some synergy in that if you are building wonders as France, you will be able to get some juicy theatre squares that will help you gain great works. And some wonders obviously have slots for works that help out her bonus. Yeah, obviously the rest of France is pretty blank (boring Chateaux, late UU, broad civ bonus), so I really have no desire to actually play them. But there is at least a tiny bit that works together in her abilities with them.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The French UU only benefits from being on your home continent, so that doesn't really help with Domination wins. It's basically just a bootleg Cossack; yes better at home but much less useful in general.

I mean they also get you GG points but yes it's not much.

The awkward part about EnglEleanor is that you have to focus on a lot of things. England has bonuses so you want industrial zones, but they also have a unique harbor, so you need that. But Eleanor needs great works, which means theatres and/or holy sites. So basically, she wants to build every district except campuses, which are obviously useful for other ways. Heck, England has basically 4X Military engineers, so she even needs to make sure she has at least one encampment ready to pump them out when required. She basically needs Germany's free district slot to even try to maximize her power.

At least with Corporations game mode on you can house products in your Royal Navy Dockyard and only invest in Commercial Hubs without having to build TS or Holy Sites.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The awkward part about EnglEleanor is that you have to focus on a lot of things. England has bonuses so you want industrial zones, but they also have a unique harbor, so you need that. But Eleanor needs great works, which means theatres and/or holy sites. So basically, she wants to build every district except campuses, which are obviously useful for other ways. Heck, England has basically 4X Military engineers, so she even needs to make sure she has at least one encampment ready to pump them out when required. She basically needs Germany's free district slot to even try to maximize her power.

I think people tend to overplay the great works part of Eleanor's flipping ability. It's a nice gimmick, but in practice the best part about Eleanor is you can play normally but have cities flip to you twice as fast. If you kick down several cities then you get the rest for free and without grievances-- much better than recruiting expensive great writers/artists, and then slowly watching paint dry. And obviously you can capture theater squares or build them in captured cities too.

And you want trade districts anyways if you're going culture so I don't consider that a cost-- they're arguably more important than theater squares so I don't think that's an issue; Masoleum is a good thing to have, and you don't need many IZs either.

FrEleanor at least has some synergy in that if you are building wonders as France, you will be able to get some juicy theatre squares that will help you gain great works.

But the problem with that is that bonus starts in medieval, and has no effect until you actually finish wonders. Not to mention building wonders is a bad way to power theater squares especially with ECs being a thing now.

I would even go as far to say that building too many wonders is bad for cultural victories, because it limits the venues that Rock Bands can play on.

Around the same time, I can set up IZs/aqueducts/dams and probably build those same wonders just as fast.

 

[Luxerne]

I sure hope that something is done so that Russia and Kongo don't just gobble up all the GWAM and have nowhere to put them...

Maybe the Lavra's bonus to cultural great people could be locked until you've completed specific civics: Drama & Poetry would make Lavras begin to generate writer points, Humanism would make them generate artist points, and Opera & Ballet would make them generate musician points. Or the bonus could be removed from the Lavra itself and be transferred to the civ/leader ability, to give Russia or Peter bonus points from actual theatre squares with slots available.

With Kongo, the bonus to artists is pretty much mandatory to give them a good chance of using their Nkisi ability, so I'd say it should stay, but maybe the bonus to writers and musicians could be removed (I like keeping the merchant bonus though, as it just fits thematically). To compensate, they could add some more artists that produce sculptures to the early game.

 

[Leucarum]

I sure hope that something is done so that Russia and Kongo don't just gobble up all the GWAM and have nowhere to put them...

Those are mildly annoying. Certainly a reason to eliminate Russia and the Kongo when you first meet them.

 

[Arithmion]

I know it's been said to death, but my money is on some of the older, less exciting civs. Netherlands for example. Not necessarily a bad civ. Just soooo boring.
Radio Oranje? Snooze.
Trading bonuses? Don't get me wrong, trading bonuses are great but... snooze.
Zeven Provincian (yes I know I spelled it wrong)? Don't know it's abilities, don't care. Naval game isn't really where it's at on most maps, and while I am not one of the players that steamroll ahead of the AI by turn 125, battleships are too little too late and always have been.

Same with Spain.
Colonial stuff is a super cool idea, but the loyalty mechanic needs a serious buff to be useful.
Trading bonuses? Cool. Do I remember what they are or how they work? Nope.
Maybe they should have a loyalty penalty for their home continent, and a buff for colonial loyalty (like an opposite of Phoenicia)?

No matter how useful a passive bonus may be, like with the trading abilities above, they are way less fun than something active (like Alexander's conquering bonuses) or something crazy off the wall (Kongo! Maori!).

Just my 2 cents. I love the rebalancing pass, and I am looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

 

[bengalryan9]

Zeven Provincian (yes I know I spelled it wrong)? Don't know it's abilities, don't care. Naval game isn't really where it's at on most maps, and while I am not one of the players that steamroll ahead of the AI by turn 125, battleships are too little too late and always have been.

The DZP is actually a really good UU. It also has nothing to do with battleships... it replaces the frigate. The battleship replacement UU is Brazil's, and even that one is pretty good because they come early.

Naval game in Civ 6 may be lacking but both of these can wreck any cities near the coast.

 

[Arithmion]

The DZP is actually a really good UU. It also has nothing to do with battleships... it replaces the frigate. The battleship replacement UU is Brazil's, and even that one is pretty good because they come early.

Naval game in Civ 6 may be lacking but both of these can wreck any cities near the coast.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. My mistake! The Brazil battleship does come surprisingly early. I agree it's pretty useful for a while.
Still haven't had the opportunity or need to use DZP though lol, but if others say it's useful, who am I to argue?

 

[Leucarum]

I don't get the dislike for the Dutch myself... I find their river adjacency bonuses super useful (outside of archipelago maps I'd rate it highly) and the zeven provincien is solid at what it does... I guess the Polder was supposed to be the flashy part of their kit and in practice its placement rules are so strict you don't get to place many?

 

[BD123]

The Dutch ride on their civ ability, which is a great one but doesn't really speak to anything "Dutch" to me personally since it's just a buff to your districts on rivers.

Brazil is in alright place and if everything goes well, you can even out perform Korea or Australia in science. I think IZs should benefit from the Amazon ability since logging and mining in the Amazon are pretty obvious irl things but I guess they wanted to double down on the Brazilian tree hugger theme...

Also I wished start biases are looked over... it annoys me immensely that Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Amsterdam, etc are more often than not founded deep inland while Madrid is on the coast. I don't think it would be too awful to have Brazil given a rainforest and coast start, not that they actively depend on coast like Phoenicia.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Also I wished start biases are looked over... it annoys me immensely that Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Amsterdam, etc are more often than not founded deep inland while Madrid is on the coast. I don't think it would be too awful to have Brazil given a rainforest and coast start, not that they actively depend on coast like Phoenicia.

Since Brazil now has a unique Water Park a coastal bias could work. Japan needs it as well, maybe more.
The Dutch already have a coastal start bias but it's not as big as the river one.

 

[Ticio]

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. My mistake! The Brazil battleship does come surprisingly early. I agree it's pretty useful for a while.
Still haven't had the opportunity or need to use DZP though lol, but if others say it's useful, who am I to argue?

I personally think the DZP is a very good UU, it also has a very "Dutch" approach as it let you conquer coastal cities quite easily! (like the Dutch did against the Portuguese).

My main problem with them is the Leader bonuses. They are quite "meh", maybe adding them something to encourage taking coastal cities in other continents or something like that (no loyalty pressure during X turns if the city conquered is coastal or something like that).

 

[Leucarum]

I feel like the Dutch Leader Ability was supposed to capture the trading aspect of the Dutch but firaxis didn't want to ramp the power level as the river adjacencies were already really good.

 

[Ticio]

I feel like the Dutch Leader Ability was supposed to capture the trading aspect of the Dutch but firaxis didn't want to ramp the power level as the river adjacencies were already really good.

It sounds plausible.

Maybe they can maintain the actual bonuses and add something with the new corporations as other people suggested. For example the ability to form them before other civs.

 

[Leucarum]

It sounds plausible.

Maybe they can maintain the actual bonuses and add something with the new corporations as other people suggested. For example the ability to form them before other civs.

I doubt they'd tie balance fixes to optional game modes even though it would be a thematic fit.

Just giving Radio Oranje some bonus yields would help - I don't know if I would change the Dutch much personally. I like their power level and would rather try to bring other civs closer to where they are...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It sounds plausible.

Maybe they can maintain the actual bonuses and add something with the new corporations as other people suggested. For example the ability to form them before other civs.

That's honestly what I would do. Have them being able to form a corporation at Exploration and let Shipyards hold a product slot. (This is assuming the monopolies and corporations game mode will also get changed)

The current trading bonuses on Radio Oranje isn't much but all the other aspects of the civ are so good there's no need to really change it. Though I do like the suggestion mentioned earlier about maybe more culture or loyalty from trade routes once you unlock the Radio tech.

 

[bengalryan9]

Brazil is in alright place and if everything goes well, you can even out perform Korea or Australia in science. I think IZs should benefit from the Amazon ability since logging and mining in the Amazon are pretty obvious irl things but I guess they wanted to double down on the Brazilian tree hugger theme...

Personally I think Brazil is in a better-than-alright place. They've actually gotten indirectly buffed a lot since NFP through cheaper naturalists and the preserve district, and they were already pretty good to begin with.

The only change I would make to them is to make it so their UDs don't take up a district slot.

 

[Aurelesk]

Personally I think Brazil is in a better-than-alright place. They've actually gotten indirectly buffed a lot since NFP through cheaper naturalists and the preserve district, and they were already pretty good to begin with.

Do not forget the Biosphère and its +1 Appeal from Rainforest! Brazil are the only civilization that can, in theory, get 400 Tourism from a single National Park.

How? Rainforest can rise up to 3 Appeal with Brazil (1), Biosphère (1) and Reyna's Forestry Management (1). A tile adjacent to 6 Rainforest will have 18 Appeal, 19 if there is a river, 21 with the Eiffel Tower, 25 with the Golden Gate Bridge.
At 25 Appeal per tile, a National Park will yield 100 Tourism, 200 Tourism with the Golden Gate Bridge, and 400 Tourism with the "Wish You Were Here" dedication that is a ×2 current Tourism and not a +100% base Tourism for some reason.

It can get even higher with Computers and Environmentalism (+25% Tourism each), but I need to see how it is working, but I am pretty sure they are additive to each other (+50%), then it's a ×1.5 to the current Tourism, so a 600 Tourism.

(Technically: you could swap 2 rainforests with a Cliffs of Dovers, since they give +4 Appeal instead of +3, so 103 Tourism instead of 100, so probably 618 Tourism in the end).