Rebalance of 2/3 of all civs in April!

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

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

That's funny because I see AI Scythia do that a lot. Spam kurgans everywhere and buy missionaries. It outnumbers their cavalry sometimes.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

That's funny because I see AI Scythia do that a lot. Spam kurgans everywhere and buy missionaries. It outnumbers their cavalry sometimes.

They'll learn our forceful ways... by peace!

 

[Shadowstrike]

Along with Russia, Korea, Gran Columbia and Babylon, I feel like Australia could use a little bit of a nerf. Their additional bonuses to districts is quite powerful.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I wonder how much people think will be changed. My guess is that just a handful will be taken apart and redone and just maybe some numbers changes on others.

 

[anonxanemone]

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

Not "chopping" per se but it certainlu restricts district placements.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Along with Russia, Korea, Gran Columbia and Babylon, I feel like Australia could use a little bit of a nerf. Their additional bonuses to districts is quite powerful.

Add in emus and give them a start bias.

That being said I'm not sure that Campus and Holy Sites really need the adjacency buffs depending on appeal because I feel like you build them in high appealing places anyway: adjacent to mountains, natural wonders, coast etc.

 

[Bosque]

That should be a Japan thing honestly.

Japan's UU should be a unique GDR called Godzilla.

 

[Linklite]

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.

You're assuming that you have to be playing optimally in order to play...as someone who never plays optimally and doesn't really have the skill to do so, I can assure you that you don't need to be using the bonus to enjoy or learn from playing a civ. They're not going to feel cheated just because they're not playing optimally from the start. As long as the abilities aren't actively working against them, it's fine. The only time it might matter is in multuplayer, but unless they are either capable of doing it by themselves or their fellow players are willing to help them, then they're going to have a rough time either way.

I'm someone who struggles with the game, always have, and I'm probably one of those that could do with an easy Civ, but I'd have liked Rome to be less bland because I have an interest in the Romans for multiple reasons. I was recommended to play as Teddy then first time, but honestly, improbably didn't make much difference if I played as America, China or Russia - the bonuses mean a lot less when you're first starting out. Rome can even be counterproductive - someone recently was really confused because they were getting free roads and so thought that traders were pointless in this game.

 

[bengalryan9]

One thing to consider is that some civs might get game mode specific abilities/buffs. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of civs got bonuses for Corporations mode (maybe Germany?) or some besides Gilgamesh got bonuses to Heroes (Greece?), and then there's still one other game mode coming too.

 

[Xur]

I doubt that they'd balance a vanilla civ around a season pass feature. That said, I would love to see a change for Germany - less war, more trade. My biggest issue with the old civs, are mostly related to their agendas. I doubt agendas are a part of "balance". It's just annoying that some dude hates me because I have less ships than him while I'm landlocked. Some of the agendas really make some leaders irrational.

 

[DefiantMars]

I wonder how much people think will be changed. My guess is that just a handful will be taken apart and redone and just maybe some numbers changes on others.

Frankly, that's what I am expecting. Mostly numbers changes (either positive or negative) for the bulk of the Civs in question. I'd only suspect a handful of Civs get anything more extensive, but for the most part I think we only have a handful of Civs that in desperate need of larger reworks. Most of which have already been discussed in this thread.

My preference for balance changes tends to be "Minimum Effort, Maximum Effect", so as long as the changes are measured and have a real impact, I don't mind if there aren't sweeping adjustments.

 

[The googles do nothing]

For Bablyon i see two possibilities if they are 'balanced'. One the keep the 100% Eureka and take away chopping and pillaging making it much harder to exploit having advanced units, the other is to lover the Eureka bonus so they don't get the advanced units as quick. As someone who has no interest in playing them right now the first option make me a little more interested but not much, and the second one doesn't change my opinion. i'm guessing if it happens it the second.

The real buff Spain needs is to be able to escort religious units.

 

[BD123]

Babylon seems to be a civ that you either love or hate with its instant eurekas. Lowering the eurekas to say 90 or 99% instead of 100% is just stepping onto China's niche of more powerful eurekas and inspirations imo. I don't find Babylon very fun to play as is but I'm not sure how you would fix an ability that is essentially a gimmick in its entirety without scrapping it, not to mention this gimmick is Babylon's identity in Civ 6.

As for the bland civs like Rome and Greece, whose abilities are strong but entirely passive or simplistic, I'm on the fence about changing too much. They're in a good a place as are, and we do need some more basic civs for newer players but also they're sooooo boring And Greece's ability is the only one I can think of that is replicated entirely by a wonder, which doesn't make it weak at all but it definitely makes it feel less "unique."

And not to beat a dead horse but I think the core problem of Spain lies in its LUA and CUA, the UU and UI are decently strong when applicable. I remember way back in the build up for vanilla release, Ed Beach in a developer stream said they added Spain so there could be a civ that blocks other civs from religious victories and in that EXACT stream they saw that another civ already converted Spain entirely and I don't think Phillip even got a religion in that stream. I just feel as though if it's consistently underperforming at the few things it was supposed to do for 4+ years something needs to be looked over so that it can actually somewhat play into its specific niche.

 

[Deggial]

... The real buff Spain needs is to be able to escort religious units.

Yep. Which brings me to another - not covered by this thread, but still related - topic:

Like apparently many others, I believe, that the civ balance pass will wrap up Civ6.
This will probably mean, no major patches after this point. (I still hope for continued bug-fixing, though.)

Unfortunately, there is still lots to be desired regarding the UI.
Will Firaxis also give the user interface a final pass?
- The mentioned escort for religious units, for example.
- Even more so, my pet peeves: please finally add a sort functionality to the multiple lists (city production, science output, ...) and a “hyperlink” that lets us jump directly to a city from this list.
- The ability to directly create trade routes by clicking on a target city (for road-building rather than for yields).

Or will Civ6 be left with a basically outdated UI and optimizations outsourced to moders?

 

[Dantesedge]

I play Georgia on Dramatic Ages only now because I find it much more versatile and fun with the new Strength in Unity changes. Seriously, if they could just move that ability over to the regular game I’d be happy. +1 Wildcard in a GA, and access to Dark Age policies at all times (Normal Age included). Hard to complain about near constant access to Monatascism and Isolation in the early game. Throw in a +1 era score for each time you build a wall to help make up for ditching the chaining part of Strength in Unity (and more incentive to build walls) since the chaining GA is IMO flavorless and boring... and Byzantium is better at it anyway. I like the Tsikhe, Khevsur, and leader ability as is (earlier access to Protectorate War would be nice though).

I’d like to see changes to Mapuche. Swift Hawk is awful. Not sure how to fix it though.

 

[Leucarum]

I think Mapuche is problematic because the ability they were themed around (-loyalty from killing units) didn't work too well.... Their strengths are now centered around their combat bonuses and the decent culture output of the Chemamull but those are quite different from one another and the civ as a whole.

I think the -loyalty should be replaced - if you are in a position to use it you are usually in a position to take the city anyway so why bother letting it become a free city in the first place? But what would best tie together their 'Giant Killer' theme... I'm not sure. No loyalty pressure recieved from civs in a golden age?

 

[bengalryan9]

I’d like to see changes to Mapuche. Swift Hawk is awful. Not sure how to fix it though.

What if attacking a neighbor that you share a border with gave you some of their tiles along the border? That would be a neat little mechanic (though it would have to have some limitations on it as well). Imagine stealing strategic or luxury resources from a neighbor through a small series of skirmishes...

 

[Dantesedge]

What if attacking a neighbor that you share a border with gave you some of their tiles along the border? That would be a neat little mechanic (though it would have to have some limitations on it as well). Imagine stealing strategic or luxury resources from a neighbor through a small series of skirmishes...

Or pillaging a tile allows you to actually move the resource to a location of your choosing on your border. Might be overpowered but it sounds fun. I think a Hero does something similar to that already though if I’m not mistaken...

 

[RohirrimElf]

I love this year long dedication to civ 6. I do not regret my purchase at all.
Balance changes are always nice to see. Hopefully i get inspired to pick up some older civilizations for another run.
I do think quite a few changes might be minor. Like a bias tweek or give x unique unit 40 strength instead of 42.
Am hoping for the creation of a different way to play a civ.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I love this year long dedication to civ 6. I do not regret my purchase at all.
Balance changes are always nice to see. Hopefully i get inspired to pick up some older civilizations for another run.
I do think quite a few changes might be minor. Like a bias tweek or give x unique unit 40 strength instead of 42.
Am hoping for the creation of a different way to play a civ.

The Civs I believe that need balance the most are Spain, Mapuche, and Sumeria.

Brew God