Reinventing the wheel

[Hulking Lummox]

Isn't this functionally identical to giving Russia a happiness bonus?

Nope, because it means you're going to work against golden ages but be able to keep growing and have production while dipping well into the negative, likely from mass settling. I did my math wrong though, I think rebellions come at -20? So say -24 or something (don't feel like fact checking). But it's true, it would be passive. The idea though was that Russia could stay competitive even at the expense of losing golden ages and have something to shape their play style more.

 

[MrL567]

Idea for Nordic Civs Remake.

Sweden:

UA: Lion of the North
If capturing any trade unit, gain gold 15x the amount it would have produced for that person in a turn. (So if it produced 10 gold for someone, it would give you 150 gold) Melee and Gunpowder units may move after attacking.

UU: Hakkapeliitta
Replaces Calvary. 36 STR instead of 34. Attacks at "range" instead of normal melee. Can not take city's. Slightly more expensive. (Not this attack is a melee attack still, so gains normal promotions.)

UB: Meadhall
Replaces Amphitheater. Gives 4 Culture and 1 artist slot along with 1 happiness. Costs the same.

A nice change around to be more offensive in the beginning and the end. The UA promotes early offense by allowing you to gain a good sum of money by raiding. The Meadhall will allow you to go wide or tall with extra happiness and a bit more culture. The UU the Hakkapelitta again is very powerful because it does not take melee damage when it attacks, but can not take cities, so it is very strong and promotes hit and run tactics to prevent you from taking damage when it can't move.

Denmark:

UA: The Old Gods
Units gain faith by killing any unit from a civ that follows a different religion then yours. Religious pressure from trade routes to you is cut by 33%. (counts if you do not have religion any they do)

UU: Long-ship
Replaces Trireme. 15 STR instead 10 STR. May carry 1 unit as cargo. Starts with Coastal Raider 1 promo. 260 Production instead of 220.

UI: Runestones
May only be placed on coastal tiles, or next to mountains. There can only be 1 in a 3 tile Radius. Provides 2 Culture and 1 Faith if on Coast + 1 of each for each coast tile on it. Mountain provides 1 Culture 2 Faith and +1 of each for each mountain near it. Boost each by 1+ at Theology, and add 1+ tourism at Flight. Unlocked at Construction.

This one while keeping the classic war status of it, adds a more religious tone to it. The UA lets you war a lot by gaining faith from killing units, and allows you to keep the boost for as long as possible via the 33% less influence of religion from trade routes. The UU while more expensive, a few of them can ferry units a lot faster then normal, which is very nasty. Finally the Runestones while few in number, make up for it with nice yeilds which can get upgraded to allow Denmark to become strong at culture.

 

[MARDUK80]

@wigwam: Some really great ideas!

The ones I especially liked; Aztecs, India, Mongolia, Babylon and Spain. Out of those five Spain and Mongolia are my favorites.

Hopefully we will see many changes to existing Civs in BNW, not just France.

Spoiler :

Aztecs
Triple Alliance: City-States are more easily threatened, yield greater tribute, and reward quests to demand tribute with greater influence.

Ball Court (replaces Colosseum): +1 Culture, +1 Faith.
Eagle Warrior (replaces Archer): +3 Strength, +1 Ranged Strength. Earns 50% of opponents' strength as Faith for kills.

India
Holy Rivers: +1 Faith and +10% growth in Cities on rivers.

Stepwell (replaces Aqueduct): +1 Faith, +2 Food.
Gupta Longbowman (replaces composite bowman): +1 Strength, +2 Ranged Strength. Starts with Volley promotion.

Mongolia
Assimilation: You can construct the unique Units, Buildings, and Improvements of any Civilization whose original Capital you control.

Mounted Archer (replaces Crossbowman): +3 Movement. Can move after attacking. No defensive terrain bonuses.
Light Lancer (replaces Knight): +1 Movement. Starts with Charge promotion.

Babylon
Akkadian Heritage: Receive a small amount of Culture and Science from each Ancient Ruin your Units explore. Receive a free Artifact when you discover Archaeology. +2 Culture from Landmarks and all Great Person tile improvements.

Brickworks (replaces Stone Works): +1 Production. +10% Production when constructing Buildings or Wonders. No resource requirements.
Royal Guard (replaces Chariot Archer): +1 Strength, +1 Ranged Strength. +10% Ranged Strength vs. Melee Units.

Spain
By the Grace of God: Can purchase Settlers and Workers with Faith. If you have founded a religion, your new Cities convert to your religion immediately upon being settled.

Caballero (replaces Horseman): +7 Ranged Strength. Strikes twice when attacking.
Reconquistador (replaces Longswordsman): +1 Movement. May Remove Heresy from a friendly city, at the cost of 1 Citizen for every 2 followers of foreign religions eliminated from the city (one use).

 

[Olleus]

If I may be so rude as to suggest a few of my own, where I think yours could do with a little improvement. I wont be using the GNK mechanism much, as we simply know too little about them in most cases.

Rome
UA: Eternal City. For each city connected to your capital by road/harbour, you gain +1 food and +1 production in your capital.
UU: Legionary. Replaces swordsman. For each adjacent legionary, gets +20% strength.
UB: Forum. Replaces market. A city with a forum in it increase the SP cost by 33% less than otherwise (ie, acts like a local version of that liberty policy).

The idea is to make Rome the ultimate wide Civ, with a massive capital and lots of other small cities. The UA is almost the opposite of the Vanilla one, having the provinces help Rome rather than the opposite. The forum encourages you to annex puppets, and the Legionary gives you your empire. As a UU, you need to build a lot of them (and forgo all other units) to make them worthwhile, but having two lines of them will grant each of them a staggering 80% bonus.


America
UA: Land of Opportunity. Unlock ideologies 50% faster than other.
UU: Super Carrier: +1 move to a normal carrier, carries 5 planes rather than 3. Gives a +25% strength bonus to the planes it carries when attacking a civilization of a different ideology.
UI: Frontier post. Unlocked at gunpowder, consumes a worker when built. Acts in every way like a Citadel except that it doesn't damage adjacent enemy units, and can NOT flip the territory of a major civilization.

Clearly a late game, ideology, master. If you can make it to the modern era (which the frontier posts should help you with), dominating the game should be easy. Fill out your preferred ideology tree quickly, and then win by culture/diplomacy by whipping out those who oppose you.

 

[digrosz]

The Dutch
+10% Golden Age length for each trade route established

UU: Sea Beggar, earns gold equal to damage dealt to enemy naval units, can establish trade routes
UB: Polder, can be constructed by workboats on coastal tiles to turn the coast into land. Can be built by workers on marsh to improve food

 

[God of Kings]

For any discussion of polders turning coast into land, remember that ocean cannot touch land and ocean cannot become coast.

 

[pyroflare77]

I'm not any good at coming up with gameplay things, but I would like to see this done for every civ. Though the Zulu seem to be the hardest to reinvent... an ability is not the problem, the uniques are-- especially the impi.

Oh, wait, I did make an UA for the Huns. Eastern Horde: -50% mounted unit maintenance and a +10% combat bonus against technologically advanced civs.

It's probably not that great, but I tried. Making unique units or buildings is beyond me at the moment because I've done zero research, but I'd imagine if there are two UUs, one would be a mounted melee unit and the other a mounted range unit to fit with the UA.

 

[firstconsul]

The ideas in here are brilliant and sorely needed in civ. Could we get some modders in here to mod some of these in!?!

 

[Merciorum]

Byzantium:

Leader: Basil II Bulgaroktonos

UA: City of World's Desire: +25% in the capital. Religion spreads 33% faster.

UU: Tagmata: Replaces Longswordsman. Has a bonus in defence (30%), but is slightly weaker than the Longswordsman (14 strength).

UB: Cistern: replaces Aqueduct. 40% of carried over after a new is born. +3 .

 

[les berceaux]

The ideas in here are brilliant and sorely needed in civ. Could we get some modders in here to mod some of these in!?!

I would totally download a modpack that had a set of these. Maybe we could hold a poll for each civ to elect which idea gets implemented

 

[wigwam]

Hey, thanks! I'm probably going to try implementing some of these ideas after BNW comes out, but I haven't done any programming for about fifteen years, not since I was in high school, messing around with Pascal. So my modding skills are pretty much going to have to be built from the ground up. If anybody else wants to try building these civs, or even wants to borrow these ideas for new civs or anything else, please feel free!

I also came up with a pretty simple, solid idea for Austria and a seriously wacky one for the Maya:

Austria
Crownlands: Your Puppeted Cities have no penalty to Culture production and prioritize Culture-producing Buildings.

Grenzer (replaces Rifleman): As Rifleman, but double movement in Hills. +10% Strength when within three tiles of friendly territory.
Concert Hall (replaces Theatre): As Theatre, but +2 Culture. +25% Great Artist generation.

Spoiler :

Another take on the cultural warmonger idea (which I seem to keep coming back to). In Austria's case, you get way more cultural output from a puppet empire than a normal civ would, so you can develop a little tiny empire into a sprawling cultural powerhouse. Especially in the Renaissance and later, with Concert Halls and Opera Houses all over the place, you'd ideally be popping great artists left and right. The Grenzer is pretty self-explanatory, I figure.

Maya
Astronomical Codices: Receive periodic bonuses to Growth, Golden Age generation, and Combat Strength.

Pet Kot: +1 Food. +1 Food with Fertilizer. May only be built on Forest or Jungle. Improvement is destroyed if Forest or Jungle is removed. Available with Masonry.
Star Warrior (replaces Warrior): As Warrior, but gains 1 extra movement and reduced movements costs from terrain during a Sun Cycle, can build farms, plantations, and Pet Kots during a Moon Cycle, and heals at double rate during a Venus Cycle.

Spoiler :

The Pet Kot is a forest garden—extra agricultural yield without slash-and-burn or clear-cutting. Allows major growth (and, with Universities, a nice boost to science) in Jungle terrain. The UA is pretty complicated—maybe too complicated to actually be implemented, but I like the idea. You'd get a pop-up at the start of your first turn saying "A [X] Cycle begins in 26 turns" with [X] being Sun, Moon, or Venus. Then, when it starts, for 13 turns, you get either triple golden age points from happiness (Sun), +40% growth in all cities (Moon), or +25% strength for all units and cities (Venus). At the end, you get another pop-up telling you what the next cycle will be (13 was an important number for the Maya, and it seems like a good length for a special ability like this, especially given time to prepare). I think it'd be fun to sort of let the whims of fortune dictate how you play: maybe you were planning some expansion but there's a Sun Cycle coming up, so you build Colosseums instead; maybe you were planning on being peaceful but there's a Venus Cycle coming, so you start looking around for somebody to bully. The UU plays into that; you'd try to build a bunch of them early on and keep upgrading them throughout the game, and you could use them as scouts in some cycles, as workers in others. The Maya associated the Moon with agriculture and fertility and Venus with war, so that's why I chose those bonuses.

 

[Babri]

Though I don't agree with all the changes you're suggesting, there are some genuinely fantastic ideas here. I do tend to agree that too many Vanilla Civs missed out on a redesign when G&K came out.

Aussie.

This. Some of the ideas were great. . Russian UI sounded interesting as well as Arabia & Aztec UA. Also the double religious pressure from trade routes would go well with Arabia. (spread of Islam through trade routes to faraway lands like Indonesia).

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 2

 

[Merciorum]

Austria
Crownlands: Your Puppeted Cities have no penalty to Culture production and prioritize Culture-producing Buildings.

Puppeted cities already have no penalty to culture, unless I'm very much mistaken...

 

[Arachnofiend]

Puppeted cities yield 50% less culture and science as of Gods and Kings.

 

[wigwam]

Puppeted cities already have no penalty to culture, unless I'm very much mistaken...

I don't think it's in any of the patch notes (so take this with a grain of salt), but I believe puppeted cities get -25% to culture and science, plus some other disadvantages.

See this thread for a little discussion: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=467577

 

[codepoet]

America
UA: Land of Opportunity. Unlock ideologies 50% faster than other.
UU: Super Carrier: +1 move to a normal carrier, carries 5 planes rather than 3. Gives a +25% strength bonus to the planes it carries when attacking a civilization of a different ideology.
UI: Frontier post. Unlocked at gunpowder, consumes a worker when built. Acts in every way like a Citadel except that it doesn't damage adjacent enemy units, and can NOT flip the territory of a major civilization.

I really like your "Land of Opportunity" concept.
Super Carrier is meh... I like the Minuteman in the game better.
Frontier Post... I get the idea, you're trying to portray "Manifest Destiny" in a UB instead.

How about this instead?
America
UA: Land of Opportunity. Unlock ideologies 50% faster than other.
UU: First Cavalry. Replaces Cavalry, 34 str, 4 movement, 225 cost (same as normal cav) with a unique ability: Tiles pillaged by First Cavalry have a 5% chance to flip to ownership of America if they are within 5 tiles of an already owned tile.
UB: Industrial Plant: Replaces Factory. +10% , +4 , 2 specialists, requires coal (same as normal factory), plus +1 and for every 6 in this city.

 

[Calouste]

I really like your "Land of Opportunity" concept.
Super Carrier is meh... I like the Minuteman in the game better.
Frontier Post... I get the idea, you're trying to portray "Manifest Destiny" in a UB instead.

How about this instead?
America
UA: Land of Opportunity. Unlock ideologies 50% faster than other.
UU: First Cavalry. Replaces Cavalry, 34 str, 4 movement, 225 cost (same as normal cav) with a unique ability: Tiles pillaged by First Cavalry have a 5% chance to flip to ownership of America if they are within 5 tiles of an already owned tile.
UB: Industrial Plant: Replaces Factory. +10% , +4 , 2 specialists, requires coal (same as normal factory), plus +1 and for every 6 in this city.

So America gets no bonuses until late Renaissance? Not going to happen, bad for gameplay.

 

[codepoet]

So America gets no bonuses until late Renaissance? Not going to happen, bad for gameplay.

Eh maybe gameplay-wise... but it would make sense for a young country.

 

[wigwam]

A lot of players never even make it to the Industrial Era, though—maybe add a second component to the UA and move the UB to an earlier era?

 

[Mercade]

The Dutch
+10% Golden Age length for each trade route established

UU: Sea Beggar, earns gold equal to damage dealt to enemy naval units, can establish trade routes
UB: Polder, can be constructed by workboats on coastal tiles to turn the coast into land. Can be built by workers on marsh to improve food

Would be more accurate if it was turning lake tiles into polder instead of coastal tiles. Creating Maasvlakte and Palm Islands is really a thing of the last 20 years.

@Wigwam: really imaginative thread. I like it a lot.