Rebalance of 2/3 of all civs in April!

[iammaxhailme]

Considering Trajan was the emperor who saw Rome expanded to its greatest size, his in-game reputation doesn't really reflect that much. Let's say something like:

- "All founded cities start with a free monument. Can declare a colonial war after getting classical republic, and only require being one era ahead to do so. For every unit garisoned on the city center, encampment, or a roman fort, cities conquered during a colonial war yield +1 loyalty and +1 gold if the city has a road connection to the capitol". Should mesh with Rome's free road thing and their historical methods of demanding tribute (let's treat the loyalty boost as supression of rebellion). Also the Roman Fort is really flavorless and should get some use beyond being literally "early generic fort".

 

[Lord Lakely]

As far as the Château is concerned, I believe it should work similarly to the Open Air Museum and Ice Hockey Rink, no? One per city, gives culture based on appeal, extra gold from luxuries, extra housing from districts. Tourism equal to all yields combined.

It being a both a spammable UI (one you should build as many of as possible) you NEED to built adjacent to a river really limits its effects.

 

[Pietato]

I think that, for some civ, some underwhelming unique abilties/infrastructures/units are purposefully underwhelming because of the rest of the civ.

I read a lot of people complaining about Wilhelmina's Radio Oranje, and I can't disagree, it's probably one of the worst in the entire game (last in the elimination thread IIRC). But you can't disagree that, despite this useless ability, the Dutch are still a strong civ. The Zieven Provincien is a robust unit, Grote Rivieren is one of the best CUA in the game (I mean, rivers are everywhere, and giving +2 adjacency bonus for campus, IZ and TS is excellent), and the polder (while weaker than the Kampung) are very potent and aesthetically one of the most pleasing improvements. The Dutch are nothing but a strong civ already, not S tier, but lower A or B at the very least. Therefore, improving Wilhelmina's LUA into something more potent would just put the Dutch into the S tier automatically, and the Dutch would then become overpowered, and we already have enough overpowered civ.

Same for the Hacienda. Gran Columbia is automatically OP thanks to the +1 movement for all units. Do they really need more? We have nothing above S tier.

Is it a bad design then? Some might consider that it is. But it's part of the game.

One solution would be to rebalance every civ so that every one of them would ne overpowered. Because when everyone is OP, nobody is. Cvilizations Expanded do it quite well: all civs are so overpowered that it's quite balanced between everyone of them. Each civ would then feel more unique, more engaging.

But nearly 40 civs that would be changed? I can't wait to be in April, because it should be amazing.

Dutch are pretty much leaderless, though, and the Hacienda is pointless to build.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Buffing Wilhelmina to a somewhat competent leader won't automatically make the Dutch OP. Rivers and Naval dominance have very little overlap in most games, making the Dutch versatile, but not overpowered.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I believe they should take a lok at the Better Balanced Game mod, which I think does a good job at balancing civs (of course there still are stronger and weaker civs, but they are better balanced).

Civilizations Expanded mod as well.

 

[Victoria]

I am not sure what a rebalance means.
I imagine Firaxis has spotted some civs now unbalance the game in SP mode. I hope that is what it means rather than flattening them out too much.
Take Rome, a favourite of many and well designed and strong but also situational. I have seen games lately where due to the science push they can really expand. A change to them on any level would devastate the fan base.
I just wonder if the rebalance is due to the new stress on science.
I still play Victoria and Gorgo a lot, love them like they are but I guess I would get used to any change over time.

 

[Pietato]

Oh, a big change which needs to happen: Eleanor does not suffer a diplomatic favour when taking capitals through loyalty.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

It's an okay Ability, but just needs some more flavor added to it.

Well, considering the ability is called "Dynastic Cycle" what if it gave you a bonus everytime you switched governments? Say... free Inspirations and Eurekas? Free builder? Just spitballing. Just something to reflect the rising and falling dynasties of China's history in a more interesting (and less passive) way.

 

[Linklite]

As to the first point - that would give the initial walls a chance at helping with getting a great prophet - tying two of their core ideas together. Later on it would scale to +6 faith a city which is not neglible at all imo. They don't need lots of extra stats, they need to have their abilities come together.

Honestly, my excuse is that I was shattered, but I had it in my head that it would be 1GPP pt total. I concede that it is better than that, if you're building walls anyway. Itsbeen a while since I've played Georgia so I don't know if it would be worth building walls though. PS: wouldn't it be 3fpt per city? There are only 3 levels of walls, ancient, medieval and renaissance.

As to the second point - I think a free monument is actually very good for them - though the all roads lead to rome is quite dull if you have to change one. Perhaps make that one more exciting, by providing extra movement on roads in your territory (though this is a bit of stealing Cyrus's shtick)

As i said, it is powerful - I'm playing with hem at the moment, and I've never needed to build theatre districts. I'm not sure why, but the monuments certainly helped. It's just boring though, it would be nice to have a bonus that was proactive.

For all the people saying that boring civs like Rome needs a change, I disagree. Boring but efficient civs (like Greece, Rome, Sumer...) are here for the reason: that new players, or players that still struggle with the game, have civs with which they can learn and try things. We need civs thtat are straightforwards, because if all civs are as complex and flavourful as the Civilizations Expanded mod (very wonderful, but I stopped playing it with the nerf to Babylon which I found kind of disappointed, the interest of Babylon being the tech tree jump), then new or struggling players will just be overwhelmed with all the abilities, the specificities, the conditions, that knowing how and when they will use it will become a burden.
All civs cannot be like the Mayas or the Maris or the Mali. We need some boring, straightforward civs, just even for casual gameplays. If we hadn't KK in the January update, my first game wouldn't have been with Vietnam because I would have wanted to try the new Corporation mode first with a civ I wouldn't had to focus my entire attention on.

I think you are being very pessimistic in regards to newbies and their abilities. So long as a civ wouldn't get wrecked by not doing anything special, ie there are no maluses(spell?), then its fine. The only covs that I can think of, off the top of my head, that a newbie shouldn't play are Babylon, Mali, Vietnam and Maya. The rest are fine (I'm sure I'm forgetting one), and are still interesting. Rome can be easy to play and still be interesting and fun - I don't think anyone is suggesting a malus for them.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Well, considering the ability is called "Dynastic Cycle" what if it gave you a bonus everytime you switched governments? Say... free Inspirations and Eurekas? Free builder? Just spitballing. Just something to reflect the rising and falling dynasties of China's history in a more interesting (and less passive) way.

Yeah. China is a bit of a mess.
Kublai Khan is a good excuse to revise China.

I'm all for a Mongolia rebalance pass. I had always thought they would give one of its leaders a "Golden Horde" trait. +10 strength and +2 movement during Golden Age wars. (Too OP?) In Dramatic Ages mode, Mongolia get to declare Golden Age war if in a GA (cos GA wars are gone in DA mode).

Shaka and The Zulu were like the best designed civ in Civ V. Those buffalo promotions were awesome. In Civ VI Shaka is pretty lame. I do like his music though. Please rebalance.

 

[bengalryan9]

The only covs that I can think of, off the top of my head, that a newbie shouldn't play are Babylon, Mali, Vietnam and Maya. The rest are fine (I'm sure I'm forgetting one), and are still interesting.

I think a new player would struggle to take advantage of Bull Moose Teddy, Eleanor, the Khmer, Maori, and Mapuche as well. They either play completely differently from how you'd play most leaders (no chopping) or rely heavily on mechanics that are a little harder to pick up that others don't need to worry about (appeal, loyalty).

Yeah. China is a bit of a mess.
Kublai Khan is a good excuse to revise China.

I'm all for a Mongolia rebalance pass. I had always thought they would give one of its leaders a "Golden Horde" trait. +10 strength and +2 movement during Golden Age wars. (Too OP?) In Dramatic Ages mode, Mongolia get to declare Golden Age war if in a GA (cos GA wars are gone in DA mode).

Shaka and The Zulu were like the best designed civ in Civ V. Those buffalo promotions were awesome. In Civ VI Shaka is pretty lame. I do like his music though. Please rebalance.

Is China really a mess, though? They seem pretty strong to me... I think people are sleeping on how good the Great Wall is. Dynastic Cycle isn't the sexiest of leader abilities but it still saves you a lot of science and culture over the course of the game. Yeah, the Crouching Tiger is pretty bad but it's not like China needs it to do well. I'd adjust the Tigers a bit to make them at least usable but that's about it.

As for Zulu, I find them to be dull as dirt to play for sure because they're only good at one thing and it's my least favorite way to play. That said... they are pretty good at that one thing.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I think you are being very pessimistic in regards to newbies and their abilities. So long as a civ wouldn't get wrecked by not doing anything special, ie there are no maluses(spell?), then its fine. The only covs that I can think of, off the top of my head, that a newbie shouldn't play are Babylon, Mali, Vietnam and Maya. The rest are fine (I'm sure I'm forgetting one), and are still interesting. Rome can be easy to play and still be interesting and fun - I don't think anyone is suggesting a malus for them.

I have two counter-examples for you: Georgia and Hungary. Both can be played as a newbie, but itsn't it sad that you might play them without playing their strength? I'm sorry but levying armies is not the simplest gameplay, and carefully waiting to have a dominant religion as Georgia before sending envoys, and converting city-States beforehand, requires preparation than a newbie, already overwhelmed with natural disasters, loyalty issues, gold deficit, raging barbarians and Waltzing Matilda, couldn't handle it.

It's not because here we're in an echo chamber of fans and thus people with enough knowledge of this game to analyze it, that everybody is like us. We see enough post of r/civ of people asking basic questions about district placement to know that a lot of people are still grasping to understand.

Do you think those people, who are stil pondering on a lot of thing, also know how to carefully manage their cities to be esctatic while looming for wars of liberation (Scotland), carefully placing your great works and playing with entertainment complexes (Eleanor), carefully being behind other civs while spawning in the tundra (Russia), getting to place your pyramids just in the right place to maximize yields (Nubia), choosing between building a mine over iron or rushing Jebel Barka (China), surviving the first era while all you have is unproductive, slowing jungle (Brazil), looking for where you can put the very restrictive polders (Netherlands)? We need to know how to walk before knowing how to run.

We need basic civs so that people can still learn the basic things of the game (district placement, spies, wonders, natural disasters, warfare, diplomacy), so they must be easy to use (so that it cannot be forgotten accidentally by an overwhelmed newbie), powerful enough so that a basic player can learn the rest without being bullied by the AI. There is no tutorial in Civ (the tutorial are just tooltips and the humongous Civilopedia), so we need to have "tutorial" civs, civs that are simple but potent: Rome, Greece, Korea...

I know it's the trend among "hard-core" player to feel superior about casuals and newbies, but remember we all started here, and a newbie that doesn't feel he's using a civ at its full potential because he doesn't has the level, or loosing because he tried to use the complicated abilities in a clumsy and self-destroying way, then it will not be fun for him, and it will restrict people trying this game. It's in the same time a capitalist way of thinking (more players = more consumers = more money), but also an inclusive way of creating a game.

Also, let's be honest: how many leaders do we have? 58. How many are "tutorial" civs? I'll say five: Trajan, Seondeok, Pericles, China Kublai and Simon Bolivar. Less than 10% of all the civilizations are "basic", civs that a newbie can handle without difficulties and without missing anything from the civ so he doesn't feal "cheated" for trying something he finally didn't used.

 

[Josephias]

I think a new player would struggle to take advantage of Bull Moose Teddy, Eleanor, the Khmer, Maori, and Mapuche as well. They either play completely differently from how you'd play most leaders (no chopping) .

Err... I'd expect a new player to not play with a chopping strategy in mind

 

[The Highwayman]

Is China really a mess, though? They seem pretty strong to me... I think people are sleeping on how good the Great Wall is. Dynastic Cycle isn't the sexiest of leader abilities but it still saves you a lot of science and culture over the course of the game. Yeah, the Crouching Tiger is pretty bad but it's not like China needs it to do well. I'd adjust the Tigers a bit to make them at least usable but that's about it.

I 100% agree with the Great Wall being underrated. Some preplanning grants pretty massive yields fairly early and even terrible cities lacking production that can only grow can work nothing but GW tiles for +6/+4 gold/culture. I find their mid game gold economy to be quite strong and buying buildings, builders, etc. is quite viable, so not every city needs good production. China's mid game culture yields can be incredible. I think it's one of the best UIs now.

Dynastic Cycle may be subjectively boring but rewards strong fundamental play. Builders are always my most built unit - an extra charge on each supports the GW spam and everything else imaginable. Oh yeah, the crouching tiger. Well, +2 range would certainly help. Perhaps they could increase the cost to balance it but China doesn't really need it. At minimum it can be placed in a city center or encampment on defense. It's an afterthought as part of a very strong China kit. I don't see it as a mess.

 

[Jkchart]

Honestly if they re-work France I hope they make it so they're not this weird stereotype civ of "oh hon hon hon we sit back and build les wondres" and even then they're not that great building wonders or benefiting from them since wonder tourism is so bleh. The Garde Imperiale is so forgetable that in one round of musketmen buffs the devs themselves forgot about it.

Spain (is it me or does every historical game struggle to balance Spain? Civ 5, Civ 6, Age of Empires 3....) could have its CUA and LUA tweaked a bit, I think the conquistador is fine, maybe they can make them less tedious by allowing you to link religious units to them like way back in the days of initial release. The mission has undergone several tweaks here and there and it still feels weird, maybe because it's unlocked late in the civics tree but provides science and faith? I mainly play as Spain bc their playstyle - mid-game domination - is like the only kind of domination I do and they're fun when all things line up but it takes a LOT of work to line those things up, and when they don't you're stuck with a pretty blank civ who is supposed to go out and colonize overseas but doesn't really have any innate desire or benefit except some negligible trade route buffs. Maybe not making them so dependent on religion and putting more emphasis on overseas/inter-continental conquest would be better but idk Spain's identity in Civ has always been religious zealot.

Definitely want to see a re-work of all the infamous Rise and Fall casus belli leader abilities like Robert the Bruce's.

Agreed that the Conquistador is a rather strong unit. IMO one of the best mid-game UUs and stupidly good. Mission is in a better place. Spanish abilities could have a bit of a balance pass.

 

[Kjimmet]

Also, let's be honest: how many leaders do we have? 58. How many are "tutorial" civs? I'll say five: Trajan, Seondeok, Pericles, China Kublai and Simon Bolivar. Less than 10% of all the civilizations are "basic", civs that a newbie can handle without difficulties and without missing anything from the civ so he doesn't feal "cheated" for trying something he finally didn't used.

Personally I would add Russia in there too. I've played recently with my friends and often times their science and culture is less then half of mine. So I'd say that Peter's LA would be quite helpful for them while they are learning how to use a campus.

 

[bengalryan9]

Err... I'd expect a new player to not play with a chopping strategy in mind

*I* don't even play with a chopping strategy in mind... doesn't mean I still don't need to chop from time to time.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Personally I would add Russia in there too. I've played recently with my friends and often times their science and culture is less then half of mine. So I'd say that Peter's LA would be quite helpful for them while they are learning how to use a campus.

I'd put Russia in a special category of "tutorial" civs, because it's a civ with a LUA than specifically trigger when the player is behind everyone else, so it's a help for them. But it is less "neutral" than the other ones.

 

[Daigotsu Max]

Kurgans and Ziggurats improving over time would be great, as some people have pointed out.

Overall I'd love if they took the opportunity to make some of the base civs a little less dull, and maybe engage with systems which were introduced later.

Oh and simplify England so that their special ability isn't 34 different small bonuses

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Oh and simplify England so that their special ability isn't 34 different small bonuses

Yes please! Most of the time I can't even tell what England's bonuses do, and when I finally figure it out... I can't remember why they're helpful (specifically with the Power-based bonuses).

(Plus, I have a secret pipe dream for Kurgans to be buffed so Religious Scythia is an actual possibility)